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AIRFARE 

OF TO-DAY AND OF THE FUTURE 



BY 

EDGAR C. MIDDLETON 

\\ 

LATE FLIGHT SUB-LIEUT. R.N. 

" AN AIR PILOT " 

HOLDER OF ROYAL AERO CLUB CERTIFICATE 

AUTHOR OF "AIRCRAFT," " THE WAY OF THE AIR " 

AND "GLORIOUS EXPLOITS OF THE AIR " 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1918 












Printed in Great Britain. 












TO MOTHER 

A HUMBLE APPRECIATION 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

WITH Aviation we may say that we have 
reached the fifth step in the cycle of world 
progression. The exploration and the mastery of 
the seas opened up a hitherto unknown world to 
the peoples of the Middle Ages. Later the develop- 
ment of the steam engine pushed on civilization 
and commerce apace. After came the steamer upon 
the seas. Electricity gave the world a new and 
far-reaching motive power, and almost entirely re- 
placed manual labour. But the advent of Aviation 
changed for all time the conditions of the world. 
As a factor of war it revolutionized every military 
principle and theory. As vessels of commerce, air- 
craft will have reduced time to a minimum, and 
rendered distance almost oblivious ; bringing every 
far corner of the earth within easy reach of the more 
populous centres. So much has already been 
accomplished in ten years, that one dare hardly 
predict what the future holds in store. 

I would like to take this opportunity of thanking 
the Editors of the Daily Mail, Daily Express, 
Evening Standard and Flying for their courtesy 
in permitting me to use, in a few instances, 
material embodied in articles appearing in their 
journals ; also the courteous privileges extended to 
me by J. A. Whitehead, Esq., of the Whitehead 
Aircraft Co., Ltd., Richmond, in gathering necessary 
material. 

EDGAR C. MIDDLETON 



AERIAL DICTIONARY 

(Slang and Technology) 

Angle of Incidence (The).— The angle a wing makes with 
the direction of motion relative to the air. 

Ballonet (A).— An air-bag within the gas-container of a 
balloon or an airship. Its function is to control the 
pressure of the gas. 

Bank a Machine (To). — To lower the inner wing, to coun- 
teract the centrifugal force of the machine. 

Body or Fuselage (The). — The main portion of the craft, 
which contains the engine, pilot and observer's seats, 
and the fuel tanks. 

Bump (A). — A point where two currents of air conflict. 

Bus (A). — Pilot's slang for an aeroplane. 

Chassis. — The under-carriage. 

Control Lever (The). — The lever that manoeuvres both 
ailerons, wings, and elevators. 

Drift (The). — Of an aircraft is the distance by which the 
craft is carried out of its course (drifted) by an air- 
current. 

Elevator (The). — Is used for steering and balancing in the 
up and down directions. 

Gadget (A). — Popular aeronautical term for varied appli- 
ances, great and small. 

Gasbag (A). — Every aeroplane pilot refers contemptuously 
to airships as gasbags. 

Glide (To). — Is to descend with the engine cut off. 

Gun-bus (A). — A fighting aeroplane. 

Head-resistance (The).— The total resistance in the line of 
motion. 

Hun (A). — The Royal Flying Corps term for a beginner. 

Joy-ride (A). — A trip up aloft is invariably referred to as a 
joy-ride. 



xii AIRFARE 

Joy-stick {The). — The air-pilot's slang for the control lever. 
Lift. — A matter of varying pressures on given surfaces. 
Nose-dive (To). — When the craft is descending in a vertical 
direction to the earth. 

Pancake {To). — Is for the craft to fall flat to the ground. 

Prop {The). — Abbreviation for propeller. 

Pusher Aeroplane (A). — With the engine and propeller at 

the rear. 
Pylon-Pilot (A). — A gentleman who is biassed in the 

matter of preferring a large and admiring audience 

to fly over. 
Quirk (A). — R.N.A.S. term for a beginner. 
Sausage (The). — Slang for a kite balloon. 
Screw (The). — Of a seaplane is the slang for propeller. 
Side-Slip (A). — Meaning obvious — slipping inward of the 

craft. 
Skidding. — Slipping outward of the craft. 
Spin (A). — The most unpleasant sensation possible in 

mid-air. It usually occurs after over-banking, with 

the result that the aeroplane spins round like a top, 

and finally, nose-diving, crashes to earth. 
Streamline. — A certain definite shape on the plan of which 

all aeroplanes are constructed. This plan allows the 

lines of the craft to follow the direction of the currents 

of air caused by the head-resistance. 
Stunt (A). — Any trick in the air. 
Tractor Aeroplane (A). — With the engine and propeller to 

the fore. 
Undercarriage. — The framework beneath the body of the 

craft. It serves both the purposes of landing and of 

absorbing the shock thus caused. 
Volplane. — To glide. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. The Navigation of the Air 

II. Climatic and Geographical Conditions 

III. How the Air Powers Stood — August, 

1914 

IV. What Flying Is . 
V. The New Dominion 

VI. First Flights .... 

VII. Reconnaissance and Photography 

VIII. Tactics and Strategy . 

IX. Bomb Raids ..... 

X. Aerial Combat .... 

XI. Wireless and Direction of Artillery 
Fire ...... 

XII. Kite Balloons and Parachutes . 

XIII. Airships 

XIV. Fighting the Zeppelin 
XV. The Airman's Point of View 

XVI. How a Battle looks from the Air 

XVII. Airfare of the Future 

XVIII. The Diary of an Aeroplane 
Index ..... 



PAGE 
I 

15 



24 

33 

42 

52 

62 

77 

82 

9i 

108 
116 
123 
136 
148 

153 
159 
173 
187 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Line of British Fighting Scouts . . . Frontispiece 

To face j>age 
26 



Principal German Air Bases . . . . 

A Training Aeroplane in Mid-air 

Women Workers Constructing Aeroplane Parts 

Sectional View of Aerial Torpedo, showing the 
Time-fuse and the Contact Detonator . 

Old Type Fighting Craft . ... 

A " Pusher" Biplane with Propeller to the Rear 

A Corner of the Whitehead Aircraft Co.'s Aero 
drome . . . ... 



IN TEXT 

A Comparison of Flying Heights 

How London Appears from Above 

How Bombs are Dropped from Aircraft 

Range of Machine-gun Fire from Aeroplanes 

Triangular Method of obtaining Range and Alti 
tude of Hostile Aircraft 



39 
49 

85 
96 
144 

166 



Page 

6 

7 

83 

93 

139 



AIRFARE 

OF TO-DAY AND OF THE FUTURE 

CHAPTER I 
THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR 

The Surface of the Earth 

A MAP of the surface of the earth is to many 
people hardly more distinguishable than a 
Chinese love-letter or the American Morse Code. 
The markings are crudely unmistakable ; but a 
maze of colours and angles and shapes. Yet this 
same evil contraption, given the geographical 
position of the North, and a distinguishable point 
on the surface of the earth, is simple to read as an 
open book. With the airman, however, the angle 
of perspective is different and certainly more 
bewildering. He has no single point but the entire 
earth at his feet, stretching away to the oblivion of 
the sky-line in the direction of every point of the 
compass. The general position is harder to grasp, 
and map making and reading form no small part in 
the curriculum of his education. While navigation 
is as important to him as it is to the sailor. j$ - 

There is much in common between sea and air. 
The elements are similar. The traditions and 



2 AIRFARE 

precedents of the older Service will, in time, apply 
equally to either. 

With regard to navigation and pilotage the main 
differences are : whereas the view of the sea navi- 
gator is on the level, that of his brother of the air 
lies always below and covers an extremely wide 
area. 

What does the surface of the earth look like 
viewed from above ? The first view over the side is 
both curious and bewildering. It is a Lilliputian 
world, over which swarm numerous ant-like figures. 
It is pleasing to the eye ; a regular, unorthodox riot 
of colours. The colour scheme strikes one more 
than any other element. The grouping of towns 
and cities, villages and hamlets is peculiar. The 
roads and railways in the more populous districts 
intermingle in puzzling fashion. Naturally the 
sharpest division is that between land and sea. The 
blue of the one borders the grey of the other, with a 
thin dividing line of yellow sand of the foreshore. 
This yellow on the sea fringe is conspicuous : and 
from a certain altitude over the sea the bed is 
thrown up in bold relief. 

These details are all supplied in the contour 
maps. But the map to the airman is more than a 
voiceless jumble of shapes and colours. It bespeaks 
a glorious panorama of brown-smudged altitudes, 
blue-lined rivers, green-tinted plains, grey-blotted 
towns and villages, straight, black-lined railways, 
that are criss-crossed into squares to be criss- 
crossed again, and given ugly appellations as Ac 31, 
Df 22, maps that are to be read only by compass 
and by scale. 

Piecing together the intermediate colours in the 
grey background of the land, we have, most con- 
spicuous, the blue of the rivers and lakes. As land- 
marks they are the most easily distinguishable, 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR 3 

excepting in wet weather, when they overflow their 
banks and change materially the appearance of the 
country for miles around. Next in order of import- 
ance are rail way- tracks, distinguishable by reason 
of their regularity and directness ; they connect 
up the principal centres of population like network. 
Tunnels are at times apt to be disconcerting. The 
track will disappear from view for half a mile or so. 
But here again reference to the map soon enables 
the pilot to pick up the broken thread. 

Large towns and populous districts are unmis- 
takable. The key to their identity is the plan of the 
diverging lines of roads, rivers and railways. 

Passing to the open country, woods are con- 
spicuous, but above an altitude of 2500 they present 
the surface of a level meadowland. Fields of crops 
differ in shade with the varying seasons of the year. 
Wheat in summer presents a golden-yellow appear- 
ance ; in autumn, brown ; in spring, green. Stubble 
fields are lightish brown in appearance, and dark 
green fields are usually found to be roots. 

Roads follow almost exactly the system of rail- 
ways. First-class or main roads are easily dis- 
tinguishable from their width, the blue steelish 
appearance of their surface, and the lines of telegraph 
and telephone wires along either side. The old 
Roman roads in England are most easily distin- 
guishable by reason of their directness. Among 
other conspicuous objects are golf-links ; the greens 
and the yellow sand-bunkers stand out prominently, 
and glass-houses that glitter dazzlingly in the sun. 

Above an altitude of two thousand five hundred 
and three thousand feet the entire surface of the 
earth, hill and valley, wood and field, appear to be 
at the same level. Landmarks are most difficult to 
distinguish when flying either at an extremely low 
or extremely high altitude. The time on sunny, 



4 AIRFARE 

cloudless days passes with great rapidity ; in dull, 
cloudy weather it drags, until the seconds seem 
minutes, and the minutes hours. The natural course 
of the machine is never a direct one. It is apt, first, 
to veer to the left, then to return to the direct 
course, and then branch off again to the right. 

Factory chimneys and railway locomotives are 
useful to the air pilot. Their smoke indicates the 
direction of the prevailing wind, so necessary in the 
matter of landing the aeroplane, which must be per- 
formed head against the wind, as also getting off from 
the ground. 

The difficulty of aerial navigation may be gauged 
from the fact that a pilot recently lost his way when 
flying between Hendon and Chingford. Another 
affair of the same kind was the cause of numerous 
questions in the House of Commons, and con- 
cerned an aeroplane of the latest type that had been 
flown across Channel to the firing-line, and landed 
in the enemy's country on its first trip. A German 
pilot, in similar fashion, flew down the Belgian 
coast, and landed at Calais in mistake for Ostend, 
there to be promptly made a prisoner. And yet 
another instance is on record of an R.F.C. pilot who, 
setting out one fine morning from somewhere in 
Kent, ran into a dense bank of fog, and eventually 
landed in Norfolk. Unaccustomed to the broad 
dialect of the natives, he imagined for the moment 
that he had found his way across Channel and 
landed in the German lines, and was about to set 
fire to his machine when he discovered his happy 
mistake. 

The majority of these errors can be avoided by 
reference to the map and the use of the altimeter, 
another name for which is the statoscope. This 
instrument is contained in a large metal case and 
registers the altitude in hundreds of feet. Beneath 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR 5 

the face is an opening, into which is fitted a taut 
rubber membrane, with a small rubber tube leading 
to the outer air. By pinching the latter between 
the fingers, the outer air is excluded from the 
membrane. When the craft ascends, the air in the 
statoscope will expand, when it descends it will 
contract. Contraction or expansion both react on 
the rubber membrane, which will be sucked inward 
in descending, and when ascending be blown out- 
wards. By means of delicate internal machinery 
these movements are conveyed to the indicator hand 
on the disc. But the altimeter only registers height 
above sea-level. 

Thus an airman setting off from an aerodrome 
that lies some 2000 feet above the level of the sea, 
would fly on with the altimeter registering, let us 
say, four thousand feet ; yet in reality he would 
only be two thousand above the level of the land, 
and in constant danger of collision with altitudes 
on the surface of over two thousand feet. 

The matter of altitude varies considerably with 
the nature of the flying. For war work, usually well 
over 8000 ; for commercial purposes, anything from 
between 2000 to 6000 feet. The greater the altitude 
the safer is the flying. The engine of a machine 
failing at a height of 8000 leaves the pilot a radius 
of, roughly, ten square miles in which to choose a 
landing-place ; at 9000, twelve square miles ; and 
at 10,000 ten, and so forth. 

A comparison between the altitudes of the highest 
mountain peaks of the world and flying offers matter 
for interesting thought. We discover that the war 
altitude of flying ranges from the height of the 
Catskill Mountains to the peak of Teneriffe, and that 
the crest of Mount Everest is double the height of 
the present-day flying altitude. We have no great 
mountains in this country, but the hills tower 



AIRFARE 



sufficiently to form a continual danger to passing 
aircraft. No doubt in time to come such danger 
spots will be topped by aerial lighthouses and 
beacons. 

Contour, from the airman's point of view, is the 
important characteristic of the map. 

A map after the style of the Mercator's Chart 
would be an ideal map for the air. It would be con- 
structed on the following principle. The Rhumb 



Everest , 

Dhdwalag'tri 
Aconcagua j 




Altitude 



10,000 
5,000 



L owe st JVj r Altitude 
CaTsk 
Table Mo< 

EifTel Tower 




FIG. 



A COMPARISON OF FLYING HEIGHTS 



lines on the earth's surface would be represented 
by straight lines on the chart. And angles on the 
earth's surface would be equal to the corresponding 
angles on the chart. The only markings would be 
contour, roads, railways, rivers, and towns. 

A map of London on this principle would appear 
after the fashion of Fig. 2. 



Laws of the Air 

Naturally so vast an area as the air calls for 
special regulations and laws. And as long since as 
1902 a conference of balloonists met at Brussels. 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR 7 

The meeting devoted the better part of the time to 
discussing the differences between military and 
civilian types of craft, the use of a distinguishing 
flag for each craft, and the organization of the lately 
formed Federation Aeronautique Internationale, a 
body that now governs aeronautical matters of 




FIG. 2. HOW LONDON APPEARS FROM ABOVE 

almost every nation of the world, and to which is 
affiliated our Royal Aero Club. 

The latter institution has been instrumental in 
drawing up various rules and regulations regarding 
flying in Great Britain, the majority of them as a 
safeguard to the aviator himself. For instance, to 
avoid collision in mid- air : " Two aircraft meeting 



8 AIRFARE 

each other, end on, and thereby running the risk of 
a collision, must always steer to the right. They 
must, in addition to this, pass at a distance of at 
least ioo metres, taken between their nearest 
adjacent points. 

" Any aircraft overtaking another aircraft is 
responsible for keeping clear, and must not approach 
within ioo metres on the right, or 300 metres on the 
left of the overtaken aircraft ; and must not pass 
directly underneath, or over, such overtaken aircraft. 
The distance shall be taken between the nearest 
adjacent points of the respective aircraft. In no 
case must the overtaking aircraft turn in across the 
bows of the other aircraft after passing it so as to 
foul it in any way." 

Again, the R.A.C. issued the following notice : — 

" Flying to the danger of the public is prohibited, 
particularly unnecessary flights over towns or 
thickly populated areas, or over places where 
crowds are temporarily assembled, or over public 
enclosures, or aerodromes at such a height as to 
involve danger to the public. Flying is also pro- 
hibited over river regattas, race meetings, meetings 
for public games and sports, except flights speci- 
fically arranged for in writing with the promoters 
of such regattas, meetings, etc. Any disregard of 
the above prohibitions will render the aviator 
liable to censure, fine not exceeding £20, suspension 
of the competitor's certificate, and removal from 
the competitors' register/ ' 

In 1913 the Government passed the Aerial 
Navigation Act, that dealt with the specified areas 
over which the navigation of " every class and 
description of aircraft " was prohibited. These 
areas comprised dockyards, fortresses, arsenals, 
harbours and barracks. 

" No aircraft from abroad is allowed to make a 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR g 

landing in this country, except in special areas. 
The person in charge of such aircraft must be in 
possession of a clearance of a British consular 
officer from the country in which the voyage was 
commenced. 

11 No person in any aircraft entering the United 
Kingdom shall carry or allow to be carried in the 
aircraft (a) Any goods, the importation of which is 
prohibited by the law relating to customs. (6) Any 
goods chargeable upon importation into the United 
Kingdom with any duty of Customs, except such 
small quantities as have been placed on board at 
the place of departure as being necessary for the use 
during the voj/age of the persons conveyed therein. 
(c) Any photographic apparatus, carrier or homing 
pigeons, explosives or fire-arms; and (d) Any mails. 

1 The person in charge of the aircraft shall not 
continue his voyage until he has obtained a permit 
from the authorized officer, for which a fee of £3 will 
be payable in the case of an airship and £1 in case of 
an aeroplane. 

" Foreign naval or military aircraft shall not pass 
over or land within any part of the United Kingdom 
or the territorial waters thereof except on the 
express invitation, or with the express permission, 
previously obtained, of His Majesty's Government. 
Such aircraft shall enjoy such exemptions from the 
foregoing Orders and be subject to such special 
conditions as may be specified in the invitation or 
permission. 

" Nothing in the foregoing Orders shall be con- 
strued as conferring on a person navigating an 
aircraft any right to land in any place as against the 
wishes of the owner of the land or other persons 
interested therein, or as affecting the rights or 
remedies of any person in respect of any injury to 
persons or property caused by any aircraft. 



lo AIRFARE 

" Any person navigating an aircraft in contraven- 
tion of the foregoing Orders is liable on conviction 
to imprisonment for six months or to a fine of £200, 
or to both imprisonment and fine." 

Navigation and Pilotage 

Of the various zones, tropical and sub-tropical 
lend themselves more easily to aviation. The 
explanation is that the weather there is more 
reliable. The various seasons are more sharply 
defined. There is no unpleasant intermingling of 
calm and stormy weather. To a degree one may be 
certain twenty-four hours previous what the weather 
conditions promise to be. And the tepid air is 
favourable to aviation, never the warmest of pro- 
fessions. 

Per contra the difficulties encountered in a temper- 
ate zone, as the one within which this country lies, 
are enormous. Rain, sun, snow, fog, all are possible 
within the incredibly short space of twenty-four 
hours. For days on end flying will be impossible, 
and the pilot thus kept idle and useless. 

Closely akin to this matter of weather is the con- 
trast between night and day flying. It is common 
knowledge that flying is mostly confined to daylight. 
The darkness holds many different dangers and 
terrors. First, the surface of the earth is lost to 
view. This intensifies the dangers of landing, 
always a hazardous enterprise. To some extent this 
difficulty is overcome by the use of landing flares, 
which in a darkened country stand out with 
prominence. The most favourable of these night- 
lighting schemes is that recently adopted by the 
enemy. 

A large white light is placed in the centre of the 
landing-ground, sunk into a trench in the ground 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR il 

and covered with thick glass to withstand the 
weight of an aeroplane. At a distance of about 
250 feet from this light, and also sunk into the 
ground, are four red lights corresponding to the 
cardinal points of the compass. Each of the red 
lights is connected by subterranean cables to a wind- 
vane, mounted on a mast or tower at some con- 
venient point. At night the central light glows 
constantly, while the red light in the direction of the 
wind indicates to the pilot the wind conditions where 
the landing is to be made. It is understood that a 
system of altering the lights has been devised, so 
that an aviator must understand the code in order 
to know his whereabouts. Thus enemy airmen are 
prevented from using the lights as guides. 

Another method is to extinguish the lights im- 
mediately the pilot has left the ground and 
wait for his return signal before relighting them. 
This signalling is performed by firing a bullet of 
a certain colour from a Very's pistol at a low 
altitude. 

However, night flying is an art in itself, and is 
only permitted to experienced pilots ; the principal 
reason being, as previously mentioned, that darkness 
obliterates all landmarks, which brings us to the 
matter of pilotage and navigation. 

The former is accomplished by the aid of land- 
marks and the map ; a compass is unnecessary. On 
the other hand, navigation is steering a course out 
of sight of landmarks by compass. And though the 
compass is said to be the best friend of the sailor, 
yet more so is it of the airman. 

It is a similar instrument to that employed on a 
ship. The variation— that changes slightly every 
year — is similar ; also the deviation — this latter 
being a matter to do with the metal in the frame- 
work and the engine of the machine, which is in 



12 AIRFARE 

manner similar to the natural magnetism in the 
earth that causes the variation of the compass needle 
from true to the magnetic north. Deviation again 
varies the compass further from the true north, and is 
compensated for by the arrangement of certain 
magnets that draw the needle back to the correct 
position. 

Later we learn, vide the Scientific American, of 
the invention of an airman's compass which is 
visible at night by its own light. With this compass 
" a knowledge of navigation is not essential for lay- 
ing a course. The first step is to set the instrument 
upon the chart at. the spot indicating the user's 
location. The zero mounting of the outer ring, in 
line with the arrow point on the glass crystal, should 
point toward the north or top of the map. Any 
course desired (or the direction to be travelled in 
going from one location to another) may be found 
by elevating, to an angle of 45 degrees, the arm of 
metal attached to the outer ring and then sighting 
over its top and the niche in the magnifying 
glass bezel ring to a pin stuck in the chart at 
the point of destination. Such a process illustrates 
one important advantage of this compass over 
similar instruments, namely, that parallel rules for 
sighting are unnecessary and may be dispensed 
with. 

" In order to travel from any location to a particu- 
lar destination it is essential to apply the magnetic 
variation. With other compasses it is necessary to 
add or subtract this magnetic difference, depending 
upon whether the variation is westerly or easterly. 
Doing so gives the magnetic head to be travelled, 
read on the centre dial in the bowl. In using this 
compass, however, both adding and substracting 
are done away with. It is merely necessary to move 
the lubber's line, indicated by a white line and 



THE NAVIGATION OF THE AIR 13 

arrow painted on the crystal, to the point of destina- 
tion. This line becomes the lubber's line to be 
followed in actual travel. 

" The present compass, measuring an inch and a 
quarter thick and two and three-quarter inches in 
diameter, contains no steel except that in the 
magnet, so the needle cannot become deranged by 
being attracted to another part of the compass. 
The bowl is made of bronze and painted, while the 
fittings are of brass. A magnifying glass, mounted 
in the bezel ring and fitted over the dial, enlarges 
the figures on the latter so that they may be read 
more easily. A nickel ring attached to the outside 
of the bowl is for convenience in carrying the in- 
strument with a strap, if desired. 

11 To increase the accuracy of this compass, the 
card is mounted in a mixture of alcohol and distilled 
water, thus rendering the magnetic float more 
buoyant and sensitive. The markings on this com- 
pass are readable at night in the light from the 
radium dial, which is graduated every 5 degrees 
and numbered every 20 degrees. The last zero is 
omitted in all numbers to avoid crowding.' ' 

Another deterrent to flying an accurate course are 
cross-currents of air. To avoid this difficulty, it is 
usual for the pilot to plot out a true course by 
mathematics preparatory to leaving the ground, 
making due allowance for the cross-currents and the 
mileage. Inappropriate word ! Despite the fact 
that aerial is so remarkably similar to sea naviga- 
tion, the R.F.C. still persist in talking of flying at 
so many miles an hour. How much better it would 
sound than saying : an aeroplane was making fifty 
miles an hour, to say, it was making forty-five knots 
— never knots an hour. A knot is equivalent, 
roughly, to 6080 feet or 2026 yards. 

So much for to-day. In the future, within the 



14 AIRFARE 

space of a very few years we will find beaten tracks 
in the air as to-day they lie across the great oceans. 
There will be special trade routes and commercial 
tracks. But they will, without exception, all lie 
eastward of the United Kingdom. 



CHAPTER II 

CLIMATIC AND GEOGRAPHICAL 
CONDITIONS 

AVIATION develops more and more day by day. 
jf"Y To the uninitiated such development is re- 
garded with interest, but not appreciation. This by 
reason of the strenuous times in which we live, and 
the necessary military secrecy which prohibits public 
discussion concerning the development of the various 
craft. To the man in the street aviation provides a 
pleasing interlude to the grim chorus of war. It is 
spectacular, thrilling, heroic ! Beyond that it is not 
realized that the aeroplane and airship are no longer 
units but decisive factors in battle. Yet the air is 
common to all. To every Power that has the 
necessary craft it provides a free highway, for good 
or evil. And what is common to all cannot be held 
by all. One alone can control. In time past it was 
the sea that was the common element. From the 
time of the Roman Empire the dominating Powers 
of the world have held the sea before conquering the 
land, and, incidentally, been possessed of ample 
seaboards. Spain is witness to the latter fact, as 
also France, and later our own Empire. We 
mastered the sea : we mastered the world ! Now 
the air, by reason of its accessibility, has superseded 
the sea. In the future, the mastery of the air must 
mean the dominion of the world. 

But before further discussion it will be well to 

15 



16 AIRFARE 

consider the types of craft. They are three in 
number : aeroplane, seaplane, and airship. The 
former operates entirely over land ; the seaplane, 
as its name would imply, over the sea ; and the latter, 
over both land and sea. Which of the three offer 
greater possibilities in the future ? For the nonce 
we will adopt the aeroplane, by reason of its already 
extensive field of operations. 

Studying the map of the world, from the point 
of view of the air, what do we discover ? Not five 
continents and five oceans, but one great tract of 
land that stretches from Hammerfest in the north 
to Capetown in the south, westward to Lisbon, 
eastward to Vladivostock, comprising three entire 
continents. For the rest the main group is sur- 
rounded by the great oceans, in which lie the distant 
continents of Australasia and America. 

How does this redistribution affect Great Britain ? 
Our islands will lie on the extreme western edge of 
civilization. No longer will the activities of the 
world turn on a hub so distant from the centre. No 
longer will this country be an island. For many 
years to come the uncertain climatic conditions of 
the Atlantic Ocean will protect our western shores. 
But to the east we shall be at the mercy of the 
world. In the future our lines of communication, 
our lines of supply, will all lie eastward. 

To-day the radius of aircraft is roughly 150 miles, 
with airships 300. Already many of our cities, 
manufacturing centres, and positions of military 
importance lie within easy reach of Amsterdam, 
Paris, and Brussels. When that aeroplane radius 
extends to three, and the Zeppelin to 600, it will 
include Metz, Cologne, Bremen, Milan, Berne, Inns- 
bruck, Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Sara- 
gossa (Spain), Christiania, and Bergen (Norway). 

World supremacy for us then will be mastery of 



1 



GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS 17 

the air. Such mastery can only be achieved with 
an unceasing, unlimited supply of money and craft. 
And the future of aircraft lies in the hands of the 
constructors. Insufficient encouragement will entail 
the loss of valuable ideas and future prestige. With 
regard to the actual flying, aircraft are affected by 
climatic conditions even more than sea vessels. The 
latter have land-sheltered harbours to anchor from 
the gale. For the airman is no refuge. Inclement 
weather renders flying impossible. 

Of all these elements, wind affects flying most. It 
is a matter to do with the speed of the craft over the 
surface of the earth. The speedometer of an aero- 
plane may register 80 m.p.h., but is influenced solely 
by the power of the engine. In reality the speed of 
that machine might be ten miles over the ground, 
that is to say it might be flying ten miles in a back- 
ward direction. The wind against which it is flying 
is one of ninety miles, or ten more per hour than its 
maximum speed. 

Fog is a most dangerous condition to the airman. 
Once in a fog he loses all sense of direction and pro- 
portion. Earth and sky, and all landmarks are alike 
obliterated. Rain is blinding to the eyes, and 
affects the lift of the machine. And snow covers the 
surface of the earth with a treacherous regularity, 
rendering the landing of an aeroplane both danger- 
ous and difficult. 

But perhaps the most curious phenomenon of the 
air is the " bump " that causes the aeroplane to toss 
and heave like a boat in a stormy sea, and sends 
it plunging downward, sometimes as much as 
200 feet. These bumps are caused by diverging 
currents of air. It is not generally known that there 
are currents in the air, just as there are currents in 
the sea. The explanation of the cause is simple. 
The night is always cooler than the day, but the 



18 AIRFARE 

earth retains more of its warmth than does the air. 
The latter, by the morning, in spring, summer and 
autumn is quite chilly, in winter icy cold. When the 
sun rises the rays beat down upon the earth, warm- 
ing perceptibly the strata of air through which they 
pass. The earth is more quickly warmed, and the 
heat which it irradiates warms the layer of air 
immediately above it. 

This hot air commences to expand and rises, 
forming a vertical column of warm air which, forcing 
its way upwards, meets with considerable resistance 
from the cold air which it must traverse, and which 
is denser and therefore firmer. In order to effect its 
ascent the warm air begins to work its way spirally, 
like a drill, or like smoke rising from the funnel of a 
steamer. Thus a hot day following a cool night pro- 
duces a choppy sea of air. 

The manner of this current which the airman 
encounters largely depends upon the physiognomy 
of the country over which he is flying. Over a forest 
or wooded country the flying is quiet and placid, 
because the leaves, saturated with moisture, are 
reservoirs of coolness and are warmed very slowly 
by the sun, and even when warm do not radiate much 
heat. A sandy beach, on the other hand, or a 
desert, is warmed very quickly, and in consequence 
the air above it rises in rapid spirals. 

Sandy tracts separating wooded countries are 
always troublesome. The cool air of the woods 
pours down upon the hot air of the sandy tracts, the 
hot air in the meanwhile trying its best to escape to 
higher regions. The commotion may be imagined. 
The movement which the aeroplane undergoes over 
so diversified a surface may be compared to a con- 
tinuous switchback. Powerless to resist these 
currents, all the aviator can do is to steer his craft, 
allowing the winds to carry him up or down. 



GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS 19 

The little islands of white cloud seen in blue and 
golden summer days are the lighthouses of the air. 
They signal danger to the airman. They are the 
tops of spirally ascending warm columns of air, and, 
just like a fountain, the cold air pours down on 
either side of the hot air. 

If the airman has been drawn into such a fountain 
and escapes with his life, he can count his escape as 
marvellous. Almost invariably if he traverses such 
a geyser of air his machine turns turtle owing to the 
fact that the cold air pushes one side of his machine 
down, while the hot air pushes the other side up. 

Bumps, however, are encountered only in the 
lower altitudes. Higher up they are replaced by 
clouds if anything more dangerous. In a cloud an 
aeroplane loses stability, which frequently ends with 
a nose-dive. These clouds vary at differing altitudes. 
Up to an altitude of 3500 feet the most prevalent 
clouds are Stratus, filmy and greyish white in colour. 
From 3000 to 6400 feet are Nimbus, or rain clouds. 
Cumulo-Nimbus, or storm clouds, are prevalent 
between an altitude of 4500 to 24,000 feet. From 
10,000 to 23,000 feet are Cirro-Cumulus or " Mack- 
erel Sky," and above 27,000 and up to 50,000 feet 
are Cirrus, or " Mare's Tail." 

Above the clouds there is smoother sailing. 
Normal conditions prevail frequently. The warm 
air driving upward with uniform strength and wide 
layers makes an excellent medium for aircraft. If, 
however, there is a break in the clouds the airman 
must exercise the utmost prudence. Above such a 
break in the clouds there is no warm air to uphold 
the aeroplane. The air has been sucked away from 
this spot, and the rarefied air that remains cannot 
carry the machine. 

Just as a skater drops through a hole in the ice, 
the pilot now drops through a hole in the air. The 



20 AIRFARE 

sensation is sickening — the same sensation one 
experiences in the sudden downward passage of a 
lift. If the aeroplane strikes a warm current of air 
in its mad downward rush it is saved. The air 
checks the dropping of the machine. 

Another interesting phenomenon above the clouds 
is the mirage that often obliterates all landmarks. 
In hot, tropical countries like Egypt it is particularly 
noticeable. 

After noon, until towards sunset, for this reason, 
flying is useless. This condition embraces India, 
East Africa, Salonica, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. 
From the latter country a noteworthy instance is to 
hand. An R.F.C. pilot, reconnaissance bound, 
noticed a detachment of British and Turkish troops, 
as he thought, sitting watching one another, without 
an attempt to come to blows. He signalled to them 
desperately. And it was not until he found his 
signals entirely ignored that he realized that they 
likewise were unable to see one another. A no less 
unnerving adventure befell a pilot on the Western 
Front, returning from a patrol, one fine summer's 
morning, with low, racing clouds. He became 
aware of the presence of another machine that, in 
some mysterious fashion, always managed to keep 
ahead of him despite his accelerated pace. The 
chase continued for some twenty minutes. The 
other still retained his distance. He banked left. 
That tantalizing machine followed suit. He turned 
right : likewise the other. Until, with his hand 
already on his Lewis gun, he realized that it was the 
mirage of his own machine in the clouds. 

There is the reverse side of the picture. The 
almost Arctic conditions that prevailed on the 
Western Front early this year. " Cold ? There's 
nothing quite like it on earth/' remarked one of our 
muffled heroes in answer to an enquiry. " How I'd 



GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS 21 

bless the man who invented a dug-out that could be 
carried in an aeroplane fuselage. Of course you may 
have the excitement of being shelled, and the pos- 
sibility of having to dive into chilly space at a 
moment's notice, to keep you warm. But the 
atmosphere/' he continued, " is about as frigid as 
any North Pole explorer could wish for." 

It is interesting to pass over a high mountain peak 
in an aeroplane. The air swirls madly about the 
summit, seemingly attracting the craft like the 
magnetic mountain in the Arabian Nights. Disaster 
appears imminent, for surely the craft must be 
dashed to atoms against the walls of the peak. So 
thinks the inexperienced pilot. To his joy he finds 
that the aerial current keeps at a uniform distance 
from the surface of the mountain, rising as it rises, 
indenting as it indents, and in consequence he is 
carried in safety over the perilous height. 

Having passed over the mountain top, he is con- 
fronted with the real danger. We all know how the 
water descends over the cliff at Niagara Falls. It 
describes a huge curve, beneath which it is possible 
to walk. The air swirls over the mountain in pre- 
cisely the same way, the airfall also leaving a free 
space between the mountain and itself. The suction 
from this hole in the air is terrific, and the unwary 
aviator who happens into such an empty space is 
irrevocably lost. 

High and low tides of the sea are of extreme im- 
portance to seaplane flying. A seaplane pilot setting 
out for some distant shore, upon arrival there might 
find the tide out and be unable to land, owing to the 
distance of the water's edge from the sheds. 

The stars are of comparatively small value to the 
air pilot. Navigation thereby requires numerous 
heavy instruments, for which there is no space in the 
limited accommodation of an aeroplane. 



22 AIRFARE 

The main condition that supplies stability to air- 
craft is " lift." That is a phenomenon resulting 
from the motion of a machine relative to the atmo- 
sphere, a matter of varying pressures on given 
surfaces. The greater the lifting power, the more 
powerful may be the engine. The greater the supply 
of spare petrol, and the greater the radius of activity. 
This is important ; for where to-day we calculate in 
tens of miles, in the future it will be in hundreds. 

Now again geographical position comes into 
force. In a line directly east from Hull there lies 
no single British possession in this great tract of 
land, which for purposes of convenience we will 
name the air continent. Had our statesmen of a 
decade past been endowed with imagination and 
foresight they would have realized the supreme 
importance of the island of Heligoland. With an 
adequate fleet of aircraft, and Heligoland as a base, 
we would have dominated Germany, Denmark, 
Russia, Sweden and Norway. Heligoland would 
have been an outpost, a first line of defence. As it 
is, we must devise some other means and that im- 
mediately. 

Our nearest and most to be dreaded rival in this 
matter of aerial supremacy is the German Empire. 
The latter, with her dreams of world domination 
ashore and afloat finally shattered, will turn her 
attention to the air. She has already done so in fact. 
Ten years ago Herr Martin published in Berlin a re- 
markable book entitled Berlin-Baghdad, in which 
he stated authoritatively that " the future " of Ger- 
many lies in Asia and in the air. Principally he 
deals with the vast plateau that lies between the 
Himalayas and the Altai range, that is known as 
the Gobi Desert. Here is a fine natural aerodrome 
some hundreds of square miles in area. Strategically 
this is not a move of vast importance, but it points 



GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS 23 

clearly the working of the German mind. Her 
designers and constructors are ever busy turning 
out new craft. Money is unlimited. We hear very 
little concerning aerial construction, directly ; but 
indirectly neutral visitors tell stories of experiments 
with gigantic and strange - looking craft over the 
deserted spaces of Lake Constance. Then is Ger- 
many's world conquest to be in the air ? 

Situated in the air continent are several ideal 
districts of aerial land ; between Moscow and the 
Valdii Hills, which protect the plain from the 
violent northern winds in Asia, the Gobi and the 
Roba-el- Khali Deserts, and in Africa the Sahara, 
Libyan and Kalahari Deserts. And only one of 
these, the Kalahari, is in British possession, and 
that far, very far to the south. It must be remem- 
bered that now we talk of aerial Powers as apart 
from Powers making use of aircraft. 

In the future each of these spots mentioned will 
be a controlling point of the world. The early 
twentieth century found one particular point which 
controlled the world. Men, matters and craft 
moved slowly. In time to come it will be a world 
without distance and without time ; a world in- 
habited throughout, a Lilliputian world, that can 
hold no darkness, no uncivilization and no surprise. 

That world lies entirely within the imagination 
and capabilities of the designers and constructors. 
The greater their gifts, the more rapid the realization. 



CHAPTER III 

HOW THE AIR POWERS STOOD 

August, 1914 

FLYING in the early days of 1914 was some- 
what of a gamble. Complaint had been made, 
and reasonably so, that we in this country did not 
regard the work of aircraft with due seriousness. 
Strictly speaking this was not correct, although the 
British Government neither encouraged the new 
science nor allowed the military flying services 
sufficient money for proper development ; there 
were fortunately many far-seeing civilians who 
stepped into the breach, some with the necessary 
capital (no small matter where the development 
of aircraft is concerned) and some with personal 
services. 

These patriots, in the face of all discouragement 
and official snubs, brought the level of British 
aviation if not to actually the same as that of the 
other great Powers, to very little below ; thus when 
the war broke out, suddenly and unexpectedly, we 
were not in the difficult position we might have 
been. 

With all the imagination and verve character- 
istic of their race, the French had already hailed 
the advent of aircraft as the greatest event in 
history, and had given of their best, both in the 
matter of brains and money, to its further develop- 
ment. 

24 



HOW THE AIR POWERS STOOD 25 

Germany 

With regard to the enemy, it has always been 
part and portion of the policy of the German War 
Office to immediately adopt and develop any in- 
vention, great or small, which offered in any degree 
to become a useful engine of destruction. Thus it 
was with the aeroplane and the airship. Not with 
the eager impetuosity of their more emotional neigh- 
bours, but steadily, carefully, and at length they pro- 
duced both craft in a proportion of marvellous degree. 

They were in the lists as early as 1900 ; their 
champion, one Count Zeppelin, an indomitable, 
iron-willed old man, to whom danger and difficulty 
alike were but items in a strenuous campaign. In 
spite of lack of necessary funds, numerous accidents 
and the total absence of public support, he per- 
severed, and by winning the hearts of the latter had 
no difficulty in obtaining the former. So great an 
impression eventually did he make on the hearts of 
the German populace, that when the first aeroplane 
meeting was held at Johannisthal, the crowd scoffed 
and jeered openly at the unfruitful efforts of the 
intrepid airmen, declaring that they were all well 
content with their more solid and reliable airships ; 
for had not airship L.Z.2 already flown 870 miles 
in 38 hours ? 

However, two influential staff-officers followed the 
Wilbur-Orville- Wright experiments at Auvors and 
Paris with the greatest interest. But in those early 
days of flying in the Fatherland, it was always a 
grim struggle between the lighter-than and the 
heavier-than air partisans. Then the Government 
came forward with numerous prizes for both 
machines and engines, and the development of the 
aeroplane commenced in real earnest. 

The principal characteristics of these aeroplanes 



26 AIRFARE 

was a strong adherence to the lines and the shape 
of a bird, particularly noticeable in the Albatross 
type ; and since German aeroplanes have always 
retained that gracefulness and slender shape. 

In 1913 the public subscribed £350,000 towards 
a scheme for providing machines and pilots for the 
Army and Navy. The pilots were to be trained, not 
at Army schools, but at the factories of the manu- 
facturers. An altogether ideal plan that familiarized 
a pilot to his craft, from its birth in the shops, its 
development and up-building, the peculiarities of 
the engine, and the possibilities of the craft, and 
enabled him in the case of any emergency to take 
down his craft and put it together again, an advan- 
tage possessed by few pilots of other nations. 

At the outbreak of war the enemy possessed, 
roughly, 850 serviceable machines. They were 
divided off into battalions. To Prussia was ap- 
pointed four, and Bavaria had one other. The total 
personnel was 84 officers, 493 N.C.O/s and 1708 men. 

Here a small digression will be necessary to em- 
phasize to a suitable degree that Germany was then 
and had always been, until recently, more of an air- 
ship than an aeroplane Power. The Crown Prince's 
trip with Zeppelin in the L.Z.3 in 1908 was the first 
step towards a national movement. From that date 
the Zeppelin industry grew apace. The L.Z.3 was 
taken over by the Army and renamed Z.I., and 
important bases were constructed in the greatest 
secrecy at Heligoland and Friedrichshaven. 

After the destruction of the L.Z.4 by thunder- 
storm, August, 1908, the public subscribed £305,000 ; 
but disaster followed disaster, and although by 1913 
Germany had produced a Zeppelin serviceable and 
airworthy, it was the most costly experiment that 
was ever attempted. 

The Army officials next divided airships into 



c 

CD 

E • 5 * ■ c: 

*- CO ro C; ;>• 



<CON 




HOW THE AIR POWERS STOOD 2? 

classes, and gave to each class a distinctive lettering. 
Thus P.L. was the Parseval Luftschift ; L.Z. 
Luftschift Zeppelin. 

To the Navy were apportioned two squadrons of 
four ships and a reserve apiece, and there was a 
common station possessed of four double revolving 
sheds. The life of each airship was assumed to be 
four years, and at the end of that period it was 
intended that new craft should be substituted. 

August, 1914, found Germany possessed of 30 
serviceable airships of all kinds. 

The Navy estimates provided for 50 seaplanes. 
Six groups of 6 always to be in commission, the 
remaining 14 to be in reserve. At Cuxhaven a 
central station was erected ; also six smaller 
stations, each with accommodation for 10 machines, 
personnel, fuel, and storage. Putzig, on the Baltic, 
was converted into a Naval Flying School, and other 
stations followed rapidly at Kiel, Sonderburg, and 
Heligoland. 

Russia 

The air history of our latest and greatest ally will, 
when it is written, serve to open the eyes of the 
British public to a more than considerable degree. 
Choc-a-bloc with interesting incidents, it will make 
obvious the fact that Russia had not only made great 
strides with her aircraft, but by August, 1914, was in 
the foremost rank of aeronautical Powers. Per- 
severance and practical application of science are 
the secrets of her success. Owing to State encourage- 
ment in the shape of big financial grants, when war 
broke out Russia had at her disposal about 300 
highly trained military pilots, about 100 naval 
pilots, and more than 250 civilian pilots, while a 
large number of officers were in course of training at 
the various schools. Even the Germans were sur- 



28 



AIRFARE 



prised at the extent of her aerial resources, and 
Great Britain had no idea whatever of the progress 
made by her new Ally. In Russian aeronautical 
circles two names stand out above all others : they 
are Sikorsky, after whom the world-renowned giant 
aeroplane is named, and Chessborough, Mackenzie- 
Kennedy, a young Scotsman, who at the early age 
of twenty succeeded in attracting the attention of 
the officials, and by them was entrusted with im- 
portant experimental work ; and at twenty-eight 
years of age, a stranger in a strange land, became 
the presiding genius in aeronautical construction. 
The two men are the closest of friends, and their 
joint efforts have furnished over a score of different 
types of aircraft, from the giant " Sikorsky " to the 
baby scout. 

Perhaps the greatest achievement in pre-war 
Russian aviation was the flight by Sikorsky, flying 
one of his own machines, 25th April, 1914. He 
carried 15 passengers to an altitude of 300 metres. 

Here it will not be out of place to give a brief com- 
parative table of the various belligerent Powers, the 
numbers of their aircraft, and of their trained 
military pilots in August, 1914. 





( 


"OMPARi 


vtive Tables 






Country. 


Aeroplanes. 

Craft. Pilots. 


Seaplanes. 

Craft. Pilots. 


Airships. 

Craft. Pilots. 


Germany 


850 


1000 


5° 5° 


30 


80 


Great 1 
Britain J 


126 


154 


100 120 


4 


21 


France 


800 


850 


* 


28 


30 


Italy 


2IO 


200 


* 


10 


20 


Russia 


800 


1000 


tso 100 


20 


35 



* Number unknown. 



t Rough estimation. 



HOW THE AIR POWERS STOOD 29 

These tables naturally do not include either 
civilian craft or pilots. 



France 

France may well be called the birthplace of the 
modern aeroplane, for it was in that country that 
Orville and Wilbur Wright first carried out their ex- 
periments, that is to say experiments of an import- 
ant nature. Previously, in America, they had made 
innumerable essays with simple gliding machines. 
At first the French Government were inclined to be 
sceptical, but after being convinced by numerous 
exhibitions in 1905, through the agency of a private 
company they purchased the invention for the sum 
of £40,000, on the condition that a flight should be 
made that showed a speed of 30 miles an hour. In 
this manner they gained a considerable advantage 
over the other Powers ; together with an invaluable 
experience of motor racing, which sport served 
greatly to develop good engines, the most important 
asset to successful flying machines. 

The first French officer took his certificate in 1909, 
and at the outbreak of the war there were 850 pilots 
and 800 machines, which were divided up into 
field squadrons each of 8 machines. The complete 
squadron was composed of 7 pilots, one of whom 
was in command, and 62 N.C.O.'s and men. These 
were again divided into three groups with head- 
quarters at Versailles, Rheims, and Lyons. Towards 
the furtherance of this scheme £960,000 was voted 
in 1912, out of a total of £1,280,000 for military 
aeronautics. 

Public subscriptions yielded a sum of £244,592. 
A proportionate part of this sum was handed over to 
the Government to buy 208 machines, but only 72 



30 AIRFARE 

were purchased, and there was a considerable 
scandal created by the poor quality of these. 

The Committee of this National Fund decided to 
devote £17,000 to the foundation of 75 scholarships 
for training the military pilots on the condition that 
the successful candidates signed an agreement to 
join the military flying corps when the course was 
completed. In conjunction with the War Office they 
selected 32 landing-places. A local committee of 
three military and three civilians planned the laying 
out of each new aerodrome. Twenty-five similar 
sites were under construction, the idea being to 
cover the entire area of the Northern and Eastern 
departments. All the aerodromes were joined up by 
telephone, and there were three alternative routes 
from Bordeaux to Biarritz, with an aggregate of 
123 landing-places. 

With seaplane craft the French had not made 
much headway. The Government at the Monaco 
meeting had purchased the two best machines for 
£2400 and £2000 respectively. In 1912 they voted 
£20,000 to this project from the Naval Estimates. 

The airships were of the non-rigid type and small 
of bulk. There were 28 craft of varying sizes, with 
an average speed of 30 m.p.h. There were 15 airship 
stations dotted about the coast. 

No experiments with anti-aircraft artillery are 
recorded, but the French pilots very wisely made 
preparation for future Zeppelin raids by con- 
tinuous practice in night flying. 

Italy 

The war in Tripoli was of immense advantage to 
the Italians both in the matter of experience and 
development in aerial warfare. There, 4 officers in 
six months made an average of 78 flights apiece ; 



HOW THE AIR POWERS STOOD 31 

but on no single occasion was a passenger carried. 
Aerial photography was developed to an appreciable 
and considerable extent, which after proved of 
value. Two airships carried out 91 flights over the 
lines. 

In Italy the monoplane was the favoured type of 
craft, and particularly those of Bleriot, Nieuport 
and Bristol manufacture. There were 26 field 
squadrons in all, each of 7 monoplanes, and 4 
squadrons of 7 biplanes, aggregating 210 machines. 
Each squadron was manned by 4 officer pilots and 
4 officer observers and 24 men. 

A somewhat curious and unusual difficulty arose 
in obtaining the necessary pilots, as the parents of 
the officers objected to their joining the flying 
services, as they considered such a course both 
degrading and derogatory. Nowadays they have 
become somewhat more enlightened. 

A national subscription yielded the useful sum of 
£128,000, the major portion of which went to the 
purchase of the airship " Citta di Milano," afterwards 
presented to the Army. 

At the head of the military air service was a 
director, and under his direct supervision a battalion 
of specialists manning dirigibles at Lago di Bracciano, 
Venice, Verona, and Ferrara. Also two new forms 
of captive balloon w r ere under their special charge. 
Again there was another air battalion, with centres 
at Turin, Somma, Lombardo, Aviano, and Porde- 
none, and the great aircraft factory in Rome. 

The development of the Italian seaplane was very 
backward, although there were 15 stations along the 
coast. Airships were the most successful craft, some 
10 in number with an average speed of 65 m.p.h. 
These were constructed in the aircraft factory in 
Rome, where 500 men were told off particularly for 
their construction. 



32 AIRFARE 



Serbia 

Even little Serbia, in the first of those mischievous 
and ill-omened Balkan wars, made use of aircraft. 
Her equipment certainly was not on a very large 
scale, consisting as it did of 10 machines, 8 of these, 
together with instructors, being supplied by the 
French, and 2 others seized on railway transit con- 
signed to the enemy. The majority were shipped 
from France to Salonika, and there transported to 
Nish by rail. The latter town constituted the 
principal aircraft base, where numerous Serbian 
officers, for the most part cavalrymen, were in- 
itiated into the gentle arts of flying, observation and 
map-making. The difficulties to be overcome were 
innumerable, particularly those of adverse climatic 
conditions ; and at times the cold was so intense as 
to bring the tyres rolling off the wheels, and to w T arp 
the woodwork of the struts and stays, and even the 
oil had to be melted in buckets before being fit for 
application. No mention of Serbian aircraft is made 
save at the siege of Scutari, but they have rendered 
excellent service. At least they gained valuable 
experience for the future uses of aircraft in war. 

This, then, was the comparative position of the 
most important Powers of the belligerents in the 
opening stages of the 1914 campaign. 



CHAPTER IV 
WHAT FLYING IS 

IT is not many years ago the brothers Wright 
essayed a first flight on a frail gliding machine 
along the sand dunes of the western coast of the 
U.S.A. and Count Zeppelin experimented over the 
waters of Lake Constance. Then a flight in the air 
was an event of world-wide importance. To-day it 
is a more than daily occurrence, and the number of 
machines and pilots in operation are beyond count. 
The war has done more to develop flying than would 
have been possible in twenty years under normal 
conditions. And it is to be regretted that this, the 
greatest and most far-reaching invention of all time, 
should have thrived the most under conditions that 
savoured largely of death and destruction. How- 
ever, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. 

To-day we hold the mastery of the air on all 
fronts. The enemy has been driven back helter- 
skelter to the safety of his own lines ; to the pro- 
tection of his anti-aircraft artillery. His policy of 
continuous offensive has been forcibly converted 
into one of defensive for all time. Yet Germany 
was better prepared for the war than we, and able 
to place in the field a numerical superiority in craft 
and trained pilots. But within six months of the 
outbreak of hostilities we had them well in hand ; 
within nine, we had wrested from them their much- 
vaunted superiority. 

How was this great feat accomplished ? Regard- 
s' 33 



34 AIRFARE 

ing the personnel at a modest estimate, one may 
say that only 10 per cent of our war pilots had 
previous experience of flying. For the rest they 
were drawn indiscriminately from every rank, class 
and profession. Brought together within three or 
four months, they formed the nucleus of an efficient 
fighting unit. The secret is, of course, national 
characteristics : the calm self-confidence and pro- 
nounced sense of superiority of the British egotist. 
The Air Service needed men, the applicants heeded 
not when or why or how. The youth left his 
counting-house, his office-stool, and his chambers ; 
donned leather coat and skull cap, and lo, he 
was an airman. Better, he was endowed with 
individuality, a mind of his own, to reason and 
decide. A stripling youth, he was immediately 
given sole command on one of His Majesty's latest 
craft, with power deadly enough to wreck the half 
of a city ; an area to navigate whose limitations 
knew only the land and the stars. The confidence 
was not misplaced. 

The average Briton — hackneyed phrase — lacks 
imagination. Therein lies the first quality of the 
successful airman. To one with too great a sense 
of the imaginative flying offers cold horrors that 
would beggar Dante's " Inferno/' or the efforts of 
the Spanish Inquisition. And last, but not least, he 
possesses the sporting instinct. The eye to time 
the ball, the wrist to play the straight bat, the head 
to take the steep hedge, will not fail him in the air. 
Flying is a sport ! The only sport worthy of the 
name is flying ! Sport quickens the mind, develops 
the muscles, supplies and develops self-control ; 
each and every quality is necessary in flying. 

Aviation is a youth-intoxicated profession. It is 
of the youth, for the youth and youthful in being, 
but wise in the inherent lore of the century-old 



WHAT FLYING IS 35 

efforts of preceding generations. The successful 
effort has been built up mainly from the accumu- 
lated stores, of experience of the unsuccessful efforts 
of the past. Our fathers and our grandfathers each 
and every one were airmen at heart. The hunting 
squire and the wandering navigator looked up at the 
birds on the wing and envied. They had the 
quality within their breasts, but in its most primi- 
tive form, that waited only the freedom of inventive 
faculty to find voice. To the youth of each suc- 
cessive generation it was the same ; it is a calling 
pertaining exclusively to the cool daring, the iron 
nerve and the reckless abandon of youth. 

The latter is ever bold, yet with the quaint 
caution that lacks the decision of the older man ; it 
requires that boldness to fling defiance from a frail 
aeroplane, strung up in the clouds, upon a great 
city hedged around with anti-aircraft artillery. He 
loves daring and adventure for the mere joy of it. He 
may glut himself with both in war-flying. Best of 
all, he possesses a nervous system unimpaired ; to 
dive a cool hundred feet or so with a curse on his 
lips, but an unfluttered heart ; to pass a shrapnel 
or H.E. burst at close range and never turn a 
hair ; to sustain a mortal wound in mid-air and 
carry on. 

Typical : there is one callow youngster of my 
acquaintance, quartered at an aerodrome somewhere 
on the Western Front. This hardened warrior of 
eighteen summers has downed more than his brace 
of enemy machines ; made his aerodrome with 
struts shot away and petrol painfully low. He has 
nose-dived and spiralled and looped. Now he is 
pining his young life away with sheer ennui, because 
there is no new stunt left him to attempt ! 

There are those who would say he was suffering 
from air temperament, But does such a, condition 



36 AIRFARE 

exist ? Opinion is greatly divided. On the one 
hand, it is said to cause a pilot to become reckless 
and light-headed ; to suddenly discover all rules 
and regulations irksome, On the other hand, in the 
delightfully expressive phrasing of the Services, 
"It is all eye-wash/' Such a condition does not 
and can never exist. Let us consider for a moment 
the man and his habits. Placed in a position of great 
responsibility, participating in a particularly self- 
centred profession that calls at once for prompt 
personal decision, foresight and judgment ; he is 
no longer a unit, but a factor. To come to earth 
both literally and practically, to the status of a unit, 
in the space of time that his craft needs for descent 
were almost an impossibility. The individuality 
of the man is such that it cannot be checked and 
ordinated by commonplace regulations. But a far- 
seeing Service has already made allowances for it. 
He is granted privileges and liberties that the 
infantry and cavalry man would wonder at. 

Perhaps a little of the glamour and the halo of 
mock heroism of the early days has by now worn 
off, but the airman yet remains the darling of the 
gods ! We are apt to regard him, and especially on 
active service — a knight - errant of the twentieth 
century, sans peur et sans reproche, unmindful of the 
fact that flying is as much a prosaic business of the 
every day as is soldiering or seamanship. 

Typical of this view, there arrived one day, un- 
expectedly, at a well-known naval aerodrome, a 
captain with a polite request for a flight. The 
pilot selected was a mere youth little past the 
blushing schoolboy stage. The senior officer, with a 
confidence peculiar to our island race, unhesitat- 
ingly placed full confidence in his youthful mentor, 
even to the matter of life and death. The day was 
ideal The trip exhilarating. The passenger was 



WHAT FLYING IS 37 

profuse in his thanks, terminating with a graceful 
luncheon invitation for the following day. The 
invitation was accepted, on the one part at least, 
with a grateful fluttering of the heart. They 
lunched a deux in a cabin hung about with many 
a quaint trophy, reminiscent of all quarters of the 
navigated globe, waited upon by a silent-footed, 
respectful marine. When the good things had 
been cleared away a box of Corona- Coronas was 
produced, and over their delightful fragrance they 
grew confidential. The captain, who wore on his 
breast a long string of decorations, honours of a 
grateful country, with an experience of men and 
matters that dated back many years, devoured the 
stories of this child of the skies, of another and 
unknown world, with all the eagerness, impetu- 
osity of a midshipman. They were wonderful 
stories and matters of the air that were related. And 
the visit closed with a mutual promise of correspond- 
ence which has never lapsed. 

From whence spring these youthful Valkyries of 
the air ? The " shop " we know and are familiar 
with. Its value and efficiency were ably demon- 
strated in the hard-fought campaign of autumn, 
1914. Osborne and Dartmouth are powerful names 
to conjure with upon the seas. But the airman ! 
His Alma Mater is the British Empire ; his 
university the wise counsellings of hoarse-voiced, 
capable warrant officers and non-coms., trained in 
the school of long experience. He is drawn from all 
ranks in life. A sprinkling of civilian aviators there 
were before the war, but they in numbers would 
furnish barely two squadrons ; for the rest, they 
were barristers, clerks, public-school boys, engineers, 
undergraduates, journalists, motorists, and every 
other walk and profession in our national life. 
Unused to the air, within three or four months they 



38 AIRFARE 

have been developed into efficient pilots. How has 
this great mystery been accomplished ? 

Let us consider, first, the requisites of the useful 
airman ! First and foremost our national tempera- 
ment and characteristics lend themselves easily to 
this new activity. To the youthful Briton, healthy- 
tasted, sport-loving, the air offers an irresistible 
appeal. It brings in its trail a pleasant savour of 
daring and adventure. The true airman must 
appreciate both these excellent qualities. Further, 
he must be possessed of good health. He must not 
suffer from heart trouble. The rise and descent 
through the various altitudes of the atmosphere, it 
has been proved by several very eminent physicians, 
greatly affect the heart. He must have good eye- 
sight. This is imperative, for the major portion of 
his work, which will be of an observational nature, 
will take place at an altitude of 12,000 feet and over. 
For preference he should be between the ages of 
nineteen and twenty-four. 

The good pilot is born so. He possesses an 
uncanny sixth sense of intuition. He is ready to 
the second for the unexpected nose-dive, tail-spin, 
or side-slip. He flies his craft, not as a machine, 
but as being one tangible body of which he himself 
forms part ; knowing all its peculiarities — and 
there are many such faults and tricks ; humouring 
it in its every mood, and, incidentally, flying by a 
sense of touch. 

The aspirant to flying honours must be neither 
too tall nor too short. This is a matter to do with the 
steering of the machine. Be he the former, he will 
find himself cramped in the confined space between 
the pilot's seat and the rudder-bar. Be he the latter, 
he will find that his legs will not be long enough to 
reach that most important adjunct. 

For preference he should be on the light side. 



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WHAT FLYING IS 



39 



The aeroplane has only a limited lifting capacity. 
Therefore, taking into consideration that it is often 
required to take up two passengers, not to mention 
bombs, grenades, spare petrol, and a machine-gun, 
every extra pound of weight is of vital importance. 
His stomach must be strong. A good sailor usually 
makes a good pilot. If his stomach be weak he will 
be liable to air-sickness. 

And the necessary pilots were supplied upon the 
principle of the organization depicted in the follow- 
ing diagram : — 

This Diagram was Employed by Brigadier-General 
Brancker to Illustrate a Recent Lecture of 
his upon this matter. 



Observers from 
France. 



Civilians, N.C.O.'s, and 
Men recommended for 
Commissions, Cadet 
Wing. 



Commissioned 

Ranks in Army 

at Home and 

Abroad. 



Training School. 

i 

Reserve Squadrons 
(Preliminary Training). 



* Reserve Squadrons 
(Advanced Training). 



Service Squadrons. 



Central Flying Schools. 
* Service Squadrons. 



As to the training, the ethics of good airmanship 
are not to be found in any text-book. They develop 
under the hand, emanate to the mouth, and are 
passed on again from mouth to ear. The new hand 
is taught that his craft must be humoured, never 



Includes a course at the Aerial Gunnery School. 



40 AIRFARE 

feared ; that the air is always planning and scheming 
to trap the unwary airman ; that gusts of wind will 
suddenly shriek up from the north or the east, the 
west or the south, and send him bowling over to 
destruction. 

There are " bumps " that wait, gleefully in- 
visible, his transit through the air, that rock and 
shake him, then send him upwards to the waiting 
clouds, that play with aircraft as a cat with a mouse, 
always ready to send the frail aeroplane diving to 
the earth. There are fogs that take the air pilot 
unawares and blot out sea and land, sky and 
heaven alike, and leave him nerve-racked in an 
impenetrable gloom ; sudden storms through which 
no aircraft can pass and live. 

Solemn-eyed, tobacco-chewing petty officers and 
old-young, nerve-shattered pilots warn him of these 
dangers ; warn him that the aeroplane is in nature 
akin to the dog, in that its affections and humours 
are of the elastic variety, that can be attached at 
will to each successive master that tends and flies it, 
that it possesses besides this animal-like affection, 
personality — a personality that is at once treacher- 
ous, sometimes stubborn and wilful, sometimes 
possessed of a demon of speed, at others of a demon 
of trickery and rapid movement, sometimes 
indolent and slow in the uptake. 

In the engine shops, where are long grease- 
covered benches, bare masses of shapeless, lifeless 
machinery, struts, stays, bolts, bars, cylinders, he 
will be taught to take down and build up engines of 
varying shapes and sizes ; to satiate their ceaseless 
appetite for reeking petrol ; to remove caps, clean 
plugs, and polish greasy cylinders. From the engine 
shops he will be taken to the open air, which he will 
much prefer, and be treated to several passenger 
trips up aloft ; allowed to fly the machine under 



WHAT FLYING IS 41 

part control, and finally under his own. He learns 
to bank, firsl to the left, then to the right ; to land, 
sometimes with, sometimes without, his engine. 

There follows a short period of practice straights, 
Up and down above the aerodrome. They start him 
off in the first place with taxi ing, running the 
machine rapidly across the surface of the earth, 
from taxi ing lie is allowed to make (limbs of thirty 
to fifty yards, leaping on and off the ground like 
a great kangaroo, then short flights to gauge height 
and distance, and by reason of alarming personal 
experiences he will learn that the movements of 
the controls when in mid air must always be slow 
and deliberate ; then the final trip alone, and the 
gaining of the much coveted air certificate. 



CHAPTER V 
THE NEW DOMINION* 

THE war has proved that aircraft has become 
an indispensable factor of a nation's safety, 
for the moment the war claims the world's output of 
its aircraft factories. In this country alone we are 
producing these machines in thousands, but even that 
huge outturn is insufficient to supply the demand. 

The military side of the industry alone will always 
draw heavily upon the aircraft workshops, for we 
have it on no less an authority than the naval and 
military chiefs that when hostilities cease, then and 
then only shall we begin to build up our air services. 

Large numbers of aeroplanes will be required to 
train our flying men, to equip squadrons in all parts 
of the world, and to defend our island home against 
the invader. The future that lies before the aircraft 
industry is obvious, judging it purely from a naval 
and military point of view, but the military demands 
will be as naught compared with the civil. 

Mother Shipton is credited with having prophe- 
sied that " Carriages shall go without horses, and 
men shall fly." In this Mother Shipton has again 
been proved to be right. Carriages have long since 
gone without horses ; men have now flown. Since 
the days of Mother Shipton millions upon millions of 
money have been invested in railways and " horse- 
less carriages," fame and fortune having been won 
thereby. 

* For matter contained in this chapter I am indebted to 
Mr. J. A. Whitehead, of Whitehead Aircraft, Ltd., Richmond. 

42 



THE NEW DOMINION 43 

Even railways have their limit ; they must confine 
themselves to their iron track, like the ships of the 
seas, which can only sail the ocean ; and " horseless 
carriages/ ' which can traverse along our highways 
and byways but not beyond our coast-line. In the 
free element of the air we have none of these delim- 
itations. Illimitable space provides us with a field 
of operation that knows no boundaries. Aircraft is 
becoming the greatest of all the industries that 
human ingenuity has devised for the benefit of man- 
kind. It only remains for us to take advantage of 
the opportunity. 

The uses for which aircraft are forthwith available 
are legion. Passenger and mail traffic have 
already become an accomplished fact. Italy to-day, 
to evade the submarine menace, sends her mails 
from the mainland to the island of Sardinia by air. 
Commercial transport in its many forms awaits only 
the opportunity for producing the aircraft facilities 
for bringing the industrial centres of the world 
into closer touch with one another, by the anni- 
hilation of time and distance which it will bring 
about. 

These transformations are the inevitable result of 
the great strides that have been accomplished in the 
development of the industry. Aircraft has come 
into its own, and the future lies with the manu- 
facturer and his supporters. They will " carry on " 
in the future even more effectively than they have 
done in the past. The world is ready and waiting 
for the new industry. 

The far-seeing man who at this stage is ready to 
lend financial assistance to enable the manufacturer 
to develop the industry must of necessity reap a rich 
harvest. 

While the present great struggle continues the 
Allied Governments take all the aircraft we can 



44 AIRFARE 

produce. It is not only of the present, however, that 
we must think, but of the future. 

It is only in the preparations now being made for 
the days of peace that England can hope to gain in 
aircraft construction that supremacy which she 
attained in the shipbuilding, textile and other 
trades. That vast field of enterprise which lies in 
the sporting, pleasure and commercial spheres of 
aviation only remains to be developed. 

To comprehend adequately the remarkable strides 
made by aviation during the limited period within 
which it has become a practical craft, a recital of 
the principal incidents associated with it must prove 
interesting to all those who have watched its progress 
from its infancy and who are keen on its develop- 
ment. 

Starting, then, with the year 1900, the Wright 
brothers built their first glider, and in 1903 made 
their first free flight with a motor-driven aeroplane. 

In 1906 Santos Dumont won the first flight prize. 

In 1908 Henri Farman won the Grand Prize with 
his Voisin biplane, and Wilbur Wright commenced 
flying in France. 

In 1909 Cody began to make successful flights 
with the British Army biplane ; while Bleriot flew 
the Channel on Sunday, July 25th. In this year 
(August) the first Gordon-Bennett race took place 
at Rheims, and the first British Aviation Meeting 
at Blackpool (October). 

In 1910 the London-Manchester flight was won 
by Paulhan. 

In 1911 the circuit of Britain was won by Lieut. 
Conneau. 

In 1912 the Royal Flying Corps was formed. 

Towards the end of 191 1 the first practical school 
of aeronautical engineering was established in this 
country. 



THE NEW DOMINION 45 

Lieut. C. R. Samson, R.N., made the first flight 
from a British battleship early in 1912. 

In January, 1912, M. Vedrines, on a monoplane, 
made a speed of 92 miles per hour ; and M. Taboteau, 
also on a monoplane, covered 128 miles in 2 hours. 

In 1909, at the first Gordon-Bennett Meeting, the 
Aviation Cup was won by Glenn-Curtiss (America) 
at an average speed of 47 miles per hour. In 1910 
it was raced for at New York and was won by 
Grahame- White at a speed of 66 J miles per hour. 
In 1911 Weymann won it at Eastchurch, Isle of 
Sheppey, at 78 miles per hour ; and in 1912 Vedrines 
won it at Chicago at 105 miles per hour. 

At the latter end of 1912 Legagneux attained an 
altitude of 18,767 feet in 45 minutes — nearly 400 feet 
higher than Mont Blanc. 

In April, 1913, Gustave Hamel flew, with a 
passenger, on a Bleriot monoplane, over five countries 
— England, France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany 
— at a speed of a mile a minute, landing at Cologne, 
and this without making a single stop en route. 

Previous to this, M. Pierre d'Aucourt flew from 
Paris to Berlin — roughly 680 miles — in 7 hours 
32 minutes. 

In October, 1913, the German aviator Victor 
Stoeffler, flew 1343 miles in 22 hours 47 minutes. 

In the latter part of 1913, Chevillard toured over 
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway > at a height of 
6000 feet, to clear the mountains, and covered 
nearly 2000 miles in very mixed weather, thick fogs 
abounding. 

At the same time, M. d'Aucourt essayed the Paris 
to Cairo flight, which he would have accomplished 
save for unexpected difficulties in Asia Minor. 

In January, 1914, M. Pourpe flew from Cairo to 
Khartoum. 

The aviator Garros, without a stop, traversed the 



46 AIRFARE 

whole breadth of the Mediterranean, from France 
to Bizerta. 

Jules Vedrines, starting from Nancy, covered the 
whole of Germany at a bound, and in eight successive 
flights reached Cairo by way of Constantinople, Asia 
Minor, and Palestine, thus emulating Brindejonc des 
Moulinais, who earlier covered a 3000 miles journey 
extending to Berlin, Petrograd, Stockholm, Copen- 
hagen, and back to Paris. 

A more remarkable performance was that of 
Helan, for this French pilot, flying an ordinary 
Standard monoplane, on 39 successive days covered 
a distance of 13,000 miles across country, through 
almost continuous wind and rain. Better testimony 
to the reliability of the aeroplane it would be difficult 
to find. 

Had the war not occurred, May, 1915, would have 
seen a round-the-world race in 90 days, starting from 
San Francisco, for the Aero Club of America had 
sanctioned it. 

Then with regard to large aeroplanes, M. Sikor- 
sky's giant had, before the war, made a series of 
very successful flights with as many as 16 passengers. 

Descending to statistics, the French Aero Club 
stated at its general meeting in 1914 that in the 
previous year no fewer than 8,150,000 miles were 
flown by French airmen, as compared with 
1,875,000 miles in 1912. In other words, these 
Frenchmen alone flew in 1913 a distance equivalent 
to over 300 journeys round the circumference of the 
globe. 

Enough has been said, however, to illustrate the 
immense importance of the aircraft industry, and 
although military and naval needs will ever be 
growing, commercial necessities will demand a very 
large output from our factories. The few facts here 
given amply demonstrate this assertion, 



THE NEW DOMINION 47 

To those able to look into the future it is obvious 
that the demand for aircraft of all types will continue 
to increase, and that for a long time demand will be 
greater than the source of supply. 

The genius which the pioneers have so strikingly 
shown in meeting each situation is ever ready to 
seize the opportunities presented. The exceedingly 
interesting history of the industry shows that the 
pioneers, instead of waiting for opportunities, have 
made them. Their imagination and foresight; 
coupled with great powers of organization and 
decision, have been the means of establishing on sure 
foundations the large businesses which, from the 
early days of the war, have rendered most valuable 
service to the country. 

The experience gained in those early days, and 
continuously augmented throughout these testing 
times right up to the present, will be of inestimable 
value in entering, as soon as Peace is declared, upon 
the task of helping to equip the Empire in establish- 
ing commercial supremacy. 

From that severest test of all, the test of war, the 
Whitehead-built machines have emerged with a 
solid reputation, and the great adaptability which 
the Whitehead organization has always shown will, 
when the new call comes, prove again its great 
worth. It is an invaluable asset. 

It is very interesting to inspect a well-equipped 
aircraft factory and to watch the many varied 
operations in progressive stages until the raw 
material becomes the finished product and the 
machine is given its trial flight. 

Go, for instance, to the Whitehead Works. Take 
a look at the mill where the specially selected 
timber is being prepared for the numerous opera- 
tions through which it has to pass before finally 
forming part of the wonderful machine which glides 



48 AIRFARE 

through the air like a gigantic bird. Note, in pass- 
ing, the method by which the material which would 
otherwise be wasted is drawn by suction into the 
power-house, where it is used to produce gas, which 
in turn is utilized to generate electric current, which 
drives the machinery and lights the workshops. 

In another department the metal parts are pre- 
pared. Here, while a large number of skilled men 
are also employed, women have taken up work to a 
degree not dreamt of a few years ago. In one 
section they sit in rows at the drilling machines or 
lathes, wearing blue overalls and caps ; in another, 
begoggled like motorists with leather aprons, welding 
metal parts together. 

In the large building (which was opened by the 
then Lord Mayor of London in the presence of some 
of the most famous men in England and the Colonies) 
the chief parts of the machines are constructed and 
the machines themselves assembled. In one of the 
long galleries the women and girls, in their white 
overalls, cheerfully apply themselves to the wood- 
work, while in the other gallery are skilled work- 
men each concentrated on his particular job. 

On the ground floor many employees skilled in 
various handicrafts are at work assembling the 
numerous parts which, fitting together with mathe- 
matical exactitude, compose the wonderful mechan- 
ical birds. 

It is always a matter of great interest to the 
visitor to see the accomplished and highly finished 
workmanship contained in an aeroplane. Every- 
thing is of the best. 

During the various stages of manufacture the 
different parts are tested in a most exacting manner, 
but it is at the aerodrome that, after careful inspec- 
tion as a complete machine, the final test is made. 

The pilot sits in the aeroplane, his sharp eyes 




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THE NEW DOMINION 49 

noting everything, his ears listening intently to the 
stroke of the engine. At a given signal the blocks 
are withdrawn from the wheels. The aeroplane 
" taxies " along the ground, then rises into the air, 
climbing quickly and easily, as though delighted to 
demonstrate its power at last. 

For a short while it appears to be travelling right 
away : presently it returns and, under skilful 
guidance, wheels and darts, climbs and dives, per- 
forming every evolution to the great satisfaction of 
the pilot, who, after light-heartedly u looping the 
loop," alights and confirms the impression already 
given to the spectators below. 

Such then is a glance over the Whitehead Aircraft 
Works and Aerodrome, where, ever realizing that 
the best work as well as the best material must be 
put into aircraft, the founder, whose strong per- 
sonality permeates the whole establishment, has 
always made the welfare of his employees a matter 
of first consideration, and has seen to the provision 
of modern workshops with up-to-date canteens in 
close proximity, and, in addition, has established 
the Whitecraft Club, which is an organization to 
bind together the best brain and hand workers for 
the common good. 

Certainly, in peace as it has in war, Whitehead 
Aircraft is destined to play a great part in the 
development of the New Dominion. 

The cult of flying has already passed into that of a 
profession, ranking with the best of the older in- 
dustries. It has attracted the best of our Public 
School and University men, as well as those qualified 
by mechanical training to develop into capable 
engineers. It is a profession for the young, and 
should be adopted immediately a student has 
finished his academical career. It offers attractions 
not possessed by any other calling, and its emolu- 



50 AIRFARE 

ments are substantial and increasing But the 
training must be of a whole-hearted character. It 
is not sufficient to have a knowledge of controls with 
deft hands to manipulate them, nor will dare-devil 
courage compensate for the lack of mechanical 
tuition. It is essential for the aviator of the future 
to possess an intimate knowledge of all the engineer- 
ing details composing his machine, and practical 
ability to deal with all contingencies. This can only 
be acquired by a thorough course of instruction in 
all the data of aircraft. Consequently it is incum- 
bent upon the incipient airman to learn his pro- 
fession under the best of auspices, and to serve his 
pupilage in an establishment where, step by step, 
he will learn it thoroughly. 

The School of Aviation established by White- 
head's introduces a distinctive method of tuition, 
inasmuch as a complete knowledge of the science is 
afforded, including the designing of an aeroplane, the 
building of it, and then the flying of the finished 
craft. This curriculum means that a pupil taking a 
course with this firm acquires all the technical know- 
ledge necessary and then proceeds to the practical 
side, which includes a course of instruction on engine 
construction and running ; in fact, if desired, the 
syllabus can be so arranged that when completed the 
pupil will be an expert. 

The facilities at the disposal of anyone desirous of 
following this exceptional course of training are 
unequalled in the industry. 

A pupil can go through the drawing office, and 
from there to detail construction, designing, and final 
erection. He will be instructed upon every item 
composing a machine. He can observe and take 
part in all the constructive details of an aircraft 
engine, and from thence pass on to the pilot in 
charge of flights, who will add to the knowledge thus 



THE NEW DOMINION 51 

acquired by tutoring him how to control a machine 
in the air. 

The works are unsurpassed in this country, and 
the aerodrome is second to none in the world ; in 
fact, the pupil fortunate enough to pass through this 
school will acquire a knowledge of his profession that 
will carry him anywhere. 

Every student attending the school will study 
under such idealistic conditions that success will 
entirely depend upon himself. 



CHAPTER VI 
FIRST FLIGHTS 

THERE is recorded in some long-forgotten 
volume the case of the man who proudly 
asserted that he had experienced every danger that 
life is heir to, and truly enjoyed each one of them. 
He had crouched on the extreme crater of Etna 
when she had been in full eruption. He had escaped 
with his life from a land-rending earthquake. He 
had swum in the raging seas for half a day after a 
shipwreck. He had cheated death in the forefront 
of a bloody battle. To him danger was danger no 
longer. It was an event, a dramatic incident in his 
life in which he played conspicuously before the 
blinding limelight of publicity. To the small boy 
just breeched there comes a similar emotion. He 
feels the eye of the whole world to be upon him. 
The gawky schoolgirl with the flapping pigtail lately 
bound round neatly in a bulging bun ; the youth at 
school enjoying a first surreptitious cigarette in some 
deserted corner of the quadrangle ; the airman 
making his first flight aloft, share equally this 
feeling. 

There is a call in the air that stirs strangely, 
irresistibly, some hitherto hidden chord in his heart. 
He is literally longing to try his wings. To see, to 
learn, to hear, to know, all are insufficient. He wants 
to do. For in the doing lies realization ; the air is 
before him, wide, clear, seductive. That vampire 
voice whispers in his ear. He falls whole-heartedly 

52 



FIRST FLIGHTS 53 

to such seduction. He does not yet know ; that 
gentle tone is ever waiting to send the blood pulsing 
through his veins, the riot of madness to his head ; 
his craft and his unwary self to destruction. He 
does not know, because he has not learnt. That 
alone is possible in the hard school of experience. 
But, gently ! Caution and prudence are pearls of 
price to the pilot of the air. 

The eventful day at length arrives. He waits 
impatiently, strangely uncomfortable in his unusual 
clothing — loose-fitting leather coat and trousers, 
skull-cap and goggles. He clambers aboard the 
observer's seat. At last his dreams are to be realized. 

It is the great test, that first venture. Either the 
pupil will take to the air immediately, and after the 
first preliminary nervousness be quite at his ease, or, 
per contra, he will never make an airman. Hardly 
a matter of personal courage this ; more of tempera- 
ment. I knew a man in the Air Service — a quiet, 
unassuming sort of fellow ; an observer by circum- 
stance. He should, by rights, have been directing 
an army corps. It was his custom during spare 
moments in the air to chew milk chocolate and 
munch apples. A pilot glancing round at a strenu- 
ous moment would find his observer's head buried 
over an orange. And once, under a particularly 
violent bombardment, he had sat at the back and 
calmly taken photos of the bursting shrapnel. At 
the other end of the scale we have the case of a major 
of artillery — a man who had fought all through the 
South African War, and had won a D.S.O. for 
gallantry in the field. " He had never been up 
before," he said, " and was anxious to experience 
the new sensation/' Permission was granted. 
Away he went with an experienced pilot ; true, he 
was known as a daring " stunter." But when they 
landed his passenger sat like a statue for fully ten 



54 AIRFARE 

minutes without saying a word. Then he clambered 
out shaking and quivering, and swore a solemn oath 
that he would never go up in an aeroplane again to 
the longest day he lived. 

But there are so many various craft of the air con- 
cerning which the general public are lamentably 
ignorant. Typical is the now historic instance of the 
good lady of the suburbs who, chancing to catch sight 
from her window of a spherical balloon passing over- 
head at a low altitude, bawled down to her inamor- 
ato : " Come you up, Bill, 'ere's one of them Zeppe- 
lins they're talking so much about o' late." Were 
it not for the conspicuous peculiarities of the craft 
this would have been pardonable. But who can 
mistake the long grey caterpillar-shaped form of the 
Zeppelin for the squat and graceful aeroplane ? 
The balloon, inflated paper-bag fashion, with the 
boat-like seaplane ? " I thought every air thing " 
(note the delightful feminine vagueness) "was a 
Zeppelin/' said a well-educated woman to me 
recently, and this after two years of war. She would 
have believed that Nero played a gramophone while 
Rome was burning, or that William the Conqueror 
won the Battle of Hastings with his tanks, had it 
not been for the concise cold print of the history 
book. 

But our budding airman knows. He is inoculated 
with the fever of the early days ; steeped in the lore 
of the numerous text-books and impressed (some- 
times) with the vivid stories in the daily Press. He 
has already decided which type of craft he will 
adopt. 

As the majority decide upon the heavier- than-air 
craft, we will deal with the aeroplane immediately. 
He takes his seat. The braking blocks are with- 
drawn from the wheels. The engine is started and 
away they go. They leave the ground, the noise 



FIRST FLIGHTS 55 

diminishes. They waddle like a lame duck through 
the "bumps." 

The noise of the racing engine is impressive. It 
stands out above all other feelings. To a degree he 
is frightened, but such fright is merely due to un- 
usual surroundings. The first view of the side is the 
marvel of the trip. The perspective is entirely 
changed. 

There far below, the great hangars looking for all 
the world like a row of tiny boxes beside a long 
chicken run, lies the aerodrome, that he has so 
lately set out from. Almost involuntarily he feels 
a thrill of pride and joy. He, majestically soaring 
over the earth, and the tiny figures that are its in- 
habitants, can he be the same down-trodden humble 
" quirk " at everybody's beck and call in that in- 
conspicuous blot below ? Where the quaint terms 
of the more experienced men had puzzled him not a 
little until he had learnt that a " bus " was a more 
generally understood term than an aeroplane, and 
that being " all of a doodah " was a picturesque 
way of saying that a pilot had got nervous in mid- 
air. A " Hun " and a " Quirk," he had discovered, 
were young gentlemen of about his own accomplish- 
ments ; a " stunt " or a " joy-ride ,J indicated a 
bombing-raid or trick-flying, or a mere trip in the 
air ; the " joy-stick " was that wonderful piece of 
mechanism that controls both ailerons and elevators ; 
also that no self-respecting airman ever talks of his 
hat, but rather of his " gadget." His head had 
soon been filled with such strange terms as " gas- 
bags," " bloaters," " B.E.'s," " glides," " bumps," 
" stream-lines " and " nose-dives." 

Then come the trips up into the air. These first 
few passenger flights are invaluable to the training 
of the future pilot. Firstly, it accustoms him to an 
entirely novel element and sensation. Secondly, it 



56 AIRFARE 

accustoms him to the unexpected drops in the 
bumps and clouds, and sudden spins or nose-dives. 
He feels with the pilot. Almost involuntarily the 
correct moves come to him, and after a few flights 
he appreciates just the correct moment to climb or 
to dive, the correct angle to be allowed for banking, 
and judgment in making a landing. 

To meet this need of acquiring the habit of the 
various movements, an American inventor has gone 
so far as to construct a balancing machine for 
amateur airmen. This machine can be fitted with 
various controlling systems to maintain the equilib- 
rium of this device ; so that it requires all the 
operations necessary in keeping an aeroplane well 
balanced in a stiff gale. It consists of two long arms 
that intersect each other at right angles ; by means 
of a universal joint they are mounted on a pyramidal 
base. Over the intersection of the arms is an air- 
man's seat, a steering wheel and a foot-brace. 
According to one control system used on this 
machine the foot-brace and steering wheel are con- 
nected by cables with four weights one of which is 
suspended from each of the arms, along which it 
moves back and forth on wheels. By turning the 
steering wheel and the brake, which is pivoted at 
its centre, the weights can be shifted and the sta- 
bility of the operator effected correspondingly ; 
when one weight is drawn toward the centre the 
opposite one moves away from the centre. Shifting 
the weights produces effects similar to those obtained 
by shifting planes in an aeroplane, but of course the 
danger of a fall is eliminated. 

Another method by which the beginner is taught 
is the dual control machine. With this craft there 
is a duplicate set of control sticks, steering bars, etc., 
which it is possible for both men to manipulate at 
the same time. But, for some mysterious reason, this 



FIRST FLIGHTS 57 

type of craft, until recent months, has been frowned 
upon by the powers that be. Naturally it possesses 
both advantage and fault. For the former, it 
enables an observer whose pilot had been mortally 
wounded to bring the craft safely back to earth, 
whereas, with the old-fashioned machine, both of 
them would have broken their necks. With a 
beginner at one control stick is, however, another 
matter. Losing his head, and making feverish 
clutches at the stick, it requires all the instructor's 
skill to get the aeroplane right again. 

Without dual controls the passenger, after some 
few hours' flying, finds himself, unconsciously, follow- 
ing the movements of the pilot, and in thus acclima- 
tizing himself, forces half the battle. On this principle 
many would-be pilots in the R.F.C. were put through 
a preliminary canter of three months' observational 
work over the lines before being permitted to fly 
themselves. 

The best of these soldier men to make air pilots 
are the gunners. One may say without exaggera- 
tion that the direction of artillery fire occupies 70 
per cent of the time of the airman on active service. 
And gunnery necessitates a knowledge of artillery, 
great and small, light and heavy, an intricate know- 
ledge of that intricate subject range finding, and a 
fine judgment of elevation. There is no great 
difference in studying the battlefield from the 
surface, or at a varying altitude from eight to four- 
teen thousand feet. 

In this country it is the invariable rule to employ 
an officer pilot : occasionally an N.C.O. observer. 
Across the water our gallant Allies reverse the rule. 
Judged by results, as every factor of war should be, 
their Air Service is superior to our own. Still, our 
authorities persist in believing that the rank and 
file are inferior, both in the matter of courage and 



58 AIRFARE 

mental ability. Which, after all, is nothing more 
than mere snobbishness. 

But to repeat : the new hand has taken his first 
timorous glance over the side, when the machine 
lurches in an alarming manner. He finds himself 
staring up at the sky. For the first time he feels 
really frightened. However, the machine is not, as 
he believes, attempting to hurl itself to the ground 
below, but performing the very usual manoeuvre of 
banking — turning — though somewhat sharply, in a 
left-hand direction. He is not reassured until he 
catches sight of the pilot's face behind him, and 
then he knows that the angle has been greater than 
usual for his own particular benefit — to try his 
nerve. 

Apropos to this matter of manoeuvring in mid-air, 
each movement must be as gentle as possible. A 
rapid jerk at a critical moment may upset the 
machine entirely, bringing it into that unpleasant 
position known as a nose-dive, from which an 
aeroplane can rarely recover. Also are there " tail- 
spins/' " over-banks/' " slippings-out," " pan- 
cakes/' and " stalls." The due avoidance of these 
ills is all part of this novel curriculum. 

However, the worst fright of all is yet to come. 
The engine suddenly stops. The customary rhythmic 
roar fades away into coughs and splutters. No 
longer does he find himself staring vaguely up into 
the heavens, but cheek by jowl with the earth, 
that seems, more every second, rushing up to meet 
him. He is surprised — more, alarmed — at the 
speed at which the landing is accomplished. He 
expects a horrifying jolt as the machine first touches 
the earth, and is pleasantly surprised to find how 
gracefully the landing has been effected. The 
machine is driven across to the hangars, where the 
engine is shut off, and that wonderful craft of might 



FIRST FLIGHTS 59 

becomes again an inanimate block of metal and 
wood. 

The next few days are busy enough. Wireless, 
map-reading, gunnery, and then he is sat in a 
machine in a hangar and put through the various 
movements. His feet are moved left and right, 
making an imaginary turn in the clouds. With a 
reverential touch he pulls back the " joy-stick " to 
make her rise, and pushes it forward to descend. 
With other quirks he makes hazardous attempts at 
distinguishing strange craft in mid-air. It is an 
amusing pastime, for this art demands months of 
experience to acquire. 

Passenger flights with an instructor follow, 
perhaps six or maybe ten in number. Until, one fine 
morning, he is ordered to attempt a solo trip, with a 
postcripted hint to be careful with his landing. 

If only those other grinning idiots would go and 
bury themselves for the time being, he would feel 
much happier. Something's bound to happen with 
that gang jeering and ragging alongside, as he takes 
his seat. Afraid ? Not likely. But, dash it all, what 
the devil do his aviationable hands mean by trem- 
bling in that absurd manner ? Was that his voice, 
that feeble order to the mechanics to let go ? If it 

was Possibly he got off in an orthodox manner, 

but hardly liable to appeal to the warped under- 
standings of fault - detecting instructors. Well, 
never mind. All aboard. Drat the machine ! 

So it goes on. The aeroplane behaves in a really 
disgusting manner, don't you know. He makes his 
landing, never more thankful in his life. Was it a 
good landing ? Why can't that fool instructor say 

something, instead of Oh ! So it was. Discretion 

is more congenial than valour. 

Fast and slow machines ; there is as much differ- 
ence between a Morane and a B.E.2.C. as between a 



60 AIRFARE 

40 h.p. and a Ford. From " crocks " he graduates 
to " buses/' " buses " to " scouts," and so on. 

He has the undisputed right to negative any 
machine or weather. But that is not the way of the 
Quirk. He is an airman of twelve hours' fame, with 
a strip of pasteboard in his pocket, bearing the 
magic sesame of the Royal Aero Club. The fall 
follows pride like a dog after a new bone. 

Quite 70 per cent of air smashes happen to 
Quirks and Huns. One youngster, up for his solo 
trip, was troubled with engine failure at 5000 feet. 
He pulled her out of the resulting dive, only to lose 
his engine again when 400 feet above the ground. 
By — unconsciously — superb airmanship he got her 
into the landing ground. But here disaster awaited 
him in a sudden gust of wind that caught the tail of 
the aeroplane and, bowling her over sideways, 
crashed her twenty feet to the ground. Dragged 
from the midst of the debris, he was a sorry spectacle, 
with two fractured ribs and broken collar bone. 
Five months later, to the surprise of all concerned, 
he was flying better than ever. 

Giving a display of excruciating banks and daring 
downward sweeps over the pier of a once thronged 
seaside resort on the east coast, a seaplane was seen 
to crash down on to the shore. It happened so 
suddenly. One moment the craft had been flying 
majestically overhead, the next it was a mass of 
shapeless fabric lying in the edge of the sea. Me- 
chanics hurried to the spot, prepared to find the 
badly mutilated body of the dead pilot. Instead, 
there rose slowly from the midst of the wreckage a 
sorrowful figure, immersed to his shoulders, splut- 
tering salt water, and giving vent to his feelings in 
true nautical style. 

Like the liqueur to a good dinner, as satisfying, 
as appropriate, the taking of the certificate con- 



FIRST FLIGHTS 61 

eludes the preliminary training of the pilot of the 
skies. 

There are several tests, the official rules for which 
are as follows : — 

A and B. — Two distance flights, consisting of at 
least 5 kilometres (3 miles 185 yards), each in a 
closed circuit, without touching the ground or 
water : the distance to be measured as described 
below. 

C. — One altitude flight, during which a height of 
at least 100 metres (328 feet) above the point of 
departure must be attained : the descent to be 
made from that height with the motor cut off. The 
landing must be made in view of the observers, with- 
out restarting the motors. 

But that is only the first step in his education. 1 

With regard to the other types of craft, one may 
say that the aeroplane is preliminary to the sea- 
plane. The latter craft is slower and heavier to 
handle. The balloon, again, is preliminary to the 
kite, or captive, and the airship. But there we 
enter upon a class of aircraft opposite in all essentials 
to the " heavier- than-air." 

The motion of the latter craft through the air is, 
if anything, smoother and more pleasant : but the 
work accomplished is far in the rear of that of the 
aeroplane. 



CHAPTER VII 
RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 

I CHERISH a pleasant memory of the low-lying 
districts of north-east France, and the Flanders 
country of Belgium ; reminiscent of a walking tour 
in the happier pre-war days of 1914 ; a memory of 
a quiet and peaceful countryside, almost entirely 
given over to farming and kindred rural professions ; 
of a phlegmatic, somewhat heavy-thinking race of 
men, who viewed the world no further than the 
uttermost hedges of their own meadowlands ; of a 
flat un-undulating country of never-ending acres 
of cultivated land and ploughed fields ; of weary- 
ingly straight, tree-bordered high-roads, and a be- 
wildering network of small towns, canals, and 
railways. 

The next view was from over the side of the 
fuselage of an aeroplane. Other days, other con- 
ditions ; the country beneath was held tight in the 
grip of the devouring fiend of war. Yet that self- 
same country had changed no whit in appearance ; 
the wearying regularity of the contour rendered it 
the best and easiest air navigable in the world. And 
the aeroplane from which I peered and its dynamic 
consorts had introduced an entirely novel element 
into the science of war. 

No longer was possible surprise or sudden sortie. 
Any unexpected movement of troops on the part of 
the enemy, any massing together of reserves behind 

62 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 63 

the lines, would be reported by the aeroplane 
observer in time to render the uses of such move- 
ment null and void. From the very first days 
of the war, aeroplanes took over the work of the 
cavalry. In a third of the time and at treble the 
speed the scouting was accomplished. So it must 
always be. Warfare of to-day and of the future is a 
business of rapid movement, a product of highly 
scientific inventions and formulas. Motor transports 
rush troops and reserves from point to point in 
fewer hours than in previous times had taken days. 
With the speed of an express train or a high-powered 
racing motor-car the aerial scout is fluttering over 
the opposing armies, and the news is flashed back 
to the wireless to headquarters in an instant of 
time. 

First and foremost then the business of aircraft is 
the gleaning of information. This has brought into 
being a novel issue of warfare, and a strange 
breed of men whose profession it is to scour and 
police the skies, as the naval man has been 
doing for centuries past the seas. And the vary- 
ing degrees of observation — scouting, call it what 
you will — all are influenced by the various types of 
craft. 

Of these there are five in number. In order of 
development, the balloon is a thing of the past. 
However, it was the balloon that first heralded the 
uses of aircraft as vessels of war. During the siege 
of Paris, history tells us that as many as 56 balloons 
left the city carrying 60 pilots, 102 passengers, 
409 carrier pigeons, 9 tons of letters and telegrams, 
and 6 dogs. In the time of the American Civil War 
an aeronaut named La Fontaine went up in a 
balloon over an enemy camp, made his observation, 
rose higher into the air, and succeeded in getting 
into a cross-current which carried him back to his 



64 AIRFARE 

point of departure. In South Africa an observation 
balloon was in use at Ladysmith for twenty-nine 
days, doing extremely useful work in the spotting 
of Boer guns. The observer in an observation 
balloon reported the enemy's position on Spion Kop 
to be impregnable, and at Paardeberg disclosed the 
precise position of Cronje's force, and directed the 
artillery fire thereon. To-day, with the much 
improved anti-aircraft defences, the balloon is little 
better than useless ; that is, of course, for flying 
across the lines. 

Of the other craft the seaplane is but in the 
earliest stages of development, although one of these 
craft rendered yeoman service in the Jutland 
battle. The captive or kite balloon is employed on 
all fronts with excellent results. Here again, how- 
ever, the craft is stationary and the observation 
necessarily limited. The airship — including the 
Zeppelin — is an ideal sea-scout. One Zeppelin will 
accomplish as much as an entire squadron of light 
cruisers. It has the advantage of being able to 
hover over an object at almost any altitude. This 
advantage, however — to use an Irishism — would be 
a serious disadvantage over the firing-lines where a 
stationary object the size of a Zeppelin would make 
a " sitter " target for the anti-aircraft guns. The 
aeroplane cannot hover, but is remarkably quick in 
movement and extremely mobile ; a difficult target. 
This latter craft, then, makes the best scout, and to 
the uses of the aeroplane we will devote our atten- 
tion. 

First with regard to the personnel that man the 
craft, the observer is the Admirable Crichton of the 
air. He is a man of many parts. He must be at one 
and the same time gunner, photographer, wireless 
operator, and map-maker. His knowledge of 
military and naval strategy must be sound. He 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 65 

must know more than a little concerning artillery, 
both light and heavy. As a man he is abused more 
than he is valued. He takes the same risks as the 
pilot ; yet when any brilliant feat is accomplished 
he is ignored the while the pilot gets all the kudos. 
The nerve strain for him is greater than it is for the 
latter. He places his life, unreservedly, in the hands 
of another man in that most perilous of enterprises. 
The strain on his nerves may be judged from the 
fact that many of our best pilots have openly 
stated that they would not be observers for all the 
wealth in the world ; that they would not have the 
nerve ! 

The art of observation is considerably greater than 
that of pilotage. The latter is purely mechanical, 
the outcome of practical experience. The pilot is 
part of the craft, in like manner to a chauffeur hired 
with a car from a garage. The observer supplies the 
brains, the head, and the eye. He is virtually in 
command. The pilot must obey his orders as to 
course and altitude, but neither is dispensable to the 
other. 

There is a sharp dividing line between the two 
classes of work. Aerial strategy is concerned for the 
most part with long distance raids into the enemy's 
country. On these occasions the pilots invariably 
fly alone. There is only a limited space in an 
aeroplane, and with a plentiful supply of bombs and 
spare ammunition aboard, without which the object 
could never be attained, there is no room for an 
observer. Other objects are the destruction of lines of 
communication, railway junctions, high roads, head- 
quarters, ammunition parks, etc., or the bombard- 
ment of fortified towns and areas within the enemy's 
country. Aerial combat might also be included in 
this category. And almost all aircraft work at sea 
is strategical, as witness the various raids on Cux- 



66 AIRFARE 

haven and similar ports, which were in nature akin 
to naval bombardments. The strategical moves, on 
the other hand, are more local in nature and confined 
within the limits of the fighting lines and the 
artillery range. They cover a very wide area. And 
with them all the observer is practically con- 
cerned. 

Also the observer must always try to keep in 
touch with the military situation, and particularly 
in the encounter battle be aware of the dispositions 
of our own troops and the positions of our artillery. 
Again, there are two distinct classes of reconnais- 
sance — " Line" when observation has to be made 
along a line between two given points on the map, 
these points having been marked in previous to leav- 
ing the ground, and "Area " when the observation 
is over an entire area or district — which occupy the 
best part of the observer's time, and reconnaissance 
again is a very comprehensive issue. It is so delight- 
fully indefinite, embracing anything from the move- 
ment of an army corps to the detection of a trench 
mortar. No circumstance, however small, but is 
worthy of note. And when there is no movement, 
nothing to report, that is the most consequential 
matter to report of all. It might signify the aban- 
donment of an important position, or, on the other 
hand, might be merely a " blind " on the part of the 
enemy. 

Decoys and " blinds " must also be allowed for, 
as the hiding of a gun emplacement, captive balloon, 
or ammunition park by foliage and branches of 
trees. Unless closely watched these matters may 
cause considerable error and misunderstanding. So 
much depends upon the vision, accuracy, decision, 
and certainty of the observer. 

A railway train under observation becomes a 
factor of the war. Direction, component parts, 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 67 

freight— when possible — length, position, time, all 
mean so much to the man who is planning and 
plotting over his map miles behind the lines. There 
are trains in the sidings, some goods, some passen- 
gers ; locomotives waiting with steam up ; or the 
lines are entirely devoid of traffic. There is the sea, 
with the numerous ships passing to and fro. There, 
again, their nature is to be considered, direction and 
position ; whether cargo boat, oil ship, steamer, or 
vessel of war. The condition of the coast-line. The 
ships lying in harbour ; the high-roads leading up 
to the lines ; whether they are congested with 
troops or the reverse. The position of fresh gun 
emplacements and headquarters to be noticed. 
And all these matters have to be entered upon an 
official observer's sheet; as baffling to the unin- 
itiated as a Greek play. 

However, besides discussing the various arts of 
observation, we must consider the general position. 
As has already been stated, the advent of aircraft 
rendered a sudden or surprise movement impossible. 
The aeroplane hovering over the enemy's lines is 
cognizant with every movement that takes place 
therein. Therefore it behoves the military com- 
mander not only to keep his own aircraft constantly 
scouting over his opponent's positions, but also to 
keep him from retaliating. It is most necessary to 
hold and to keep the mastery of the air in the 
section that he commands ; and the only successful 
policy is that of a constant offensive. This in fact 
has been the policy of our military commanders 
throughout the whole of the present campaign. 
Whereas the enemy has acted, almost invariably, on 
the defensive. This accounts to a great extent for 
the higher proportion of the loss of craft on our side 
as compared with the enemy. 

As the war progressed the difficulties of obser- 



68 AIRFARE 

vational work increased. The anti-aircraft gunners 
became more accurate in their firing, and drove the 
aircraft up to a higher altitude. This increased the 
difficulty of clear vision, and the observer was 
forced in many cases to make use of field-glasses to 
scan the various necessary objects on the earth. 
This, with the constant vibration of the machine, 
was no easy matter. And even at the increased 
altitude craft were apt to return to their bases, 
riddled with shot and shell holes. In one particular 
instance an R.F.C. machine returned from a recon- 
naissance trip with as many as 365 various holes in 
the wings and fuselage. Of course, the obvious 
remedy would appear to be to armour the craft 
throughout. But here again the difficulty of " lift M 
manifests itself. The framework of the craft must 
be constructed as light as possible. Armouring, then, 
is impossible. 

Bomb-dropping is another matter that comes 
within the scope of the observer, also the direction 
of artillery fire, and last, but not least, photo- 
graphy. 

The main characteristic of aerial photography is 
the danger involved in getting down to the necessary 
altitude to obtain the required focus. This altitude 
varies from 3000 to 5000 feet with the old- 
fashioned cameras, from seven to ten with the later 
instruments. It is never a very pleasant business, 
and particularly unpleasant if the anti-aircraft 
gunners in the district are accurate in their marks- 
manship. And weather conditions play no small 
part in obtaining the necessary results. The day 
must be sunny, clear, and cloudless. 

Particularly must there be no clouds. A photo 
taken from, let us say, 7200 feet might be blurred 
and useless, whereas another taken at 7000 would 
come out distinct and clearly marked, Between 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 69 

7000 and 7200 feet probably there lay a thin film of 
mist or cloud. These different strata of atmosphere 
— for the air is not one huge void, but is made up of 
varying layers of air and mist and cloud — have 
always formed one of the main deterrents to 
obtaining clear negatives with a camera from 
above. 

For aerial photography is by no means a new art. 
As long since as 1858, Nadar, a Frenchman, made 
experiments with an ingenious contraption that con- 
sisted of a captive spherical balloon, in which there 
was fixed a small round orange-coloured tent, lined 
with black. The tent was to be used as a dark room, 
and in it he proposed to develop the photographs 
that were to be taken after the balloon had been let 
up. 

From an altitude of about 1500 feet he obtained 
some excellent results. Then a leakage of coal gas 
from the neck of the balloon above the car spoilt the 
plates. Three years later King and Black, two 
enterprising New York photographers, flying a free 
balloon over Boston on a clear day at an altitude of 
some 800 feet, obtained some excellent panoramic 
views of that city. 

About this time Negretti returned from Italy, 
where he had been engaged in extensive experiments, 
to London, and in similar fashion succeeded in 
obtaining negatives of almost every district and 
landmark in the vicinity of the metropolis. 

The next mention of camera work from above was 
during the American Civil War, when it proved 
extremely useful to the Northern States armies for 
scouting purposes. An amateur aeronaut named 
Lowe placed his services unreservedly in the hands 
of General McLellan. The balloon was captive, and 
at 1000 feet he obtained clear results as far as 
Manchester on the extreme west, and the Chika- 



70 AIRFARE 

hominy on the east. After his exposures had been 
developed the disposition of the enemy cavalry, 
infantry, and artillery positions stood out in bold 
relief ; likewise trenches and earthmarks. 

Lowe invented the principle of map-reading 
which is used by all observers of the present day, 
namely, that of dividing the face of the map into a 
definite number of spaces by means of transverse 
lines at regular distances. These spaces are then 
lettered, so the district in the top left-hand corner 
would be A, that in the top right-hand corner B, in 
the bottom left-hand corner C, and so forth. The 
spaces made by the lines were numbered i, 2, 3, etc. 
Thus a reading would be given, instead of " Enemy's 
heavy artillery immediately in rear of Richmond/ ' 
" Enemy's artillery position A1D67." 

However, even with the best maps which could be 
supplied the results were not as satisfactory as those 
obtained by the use of the developed negatives. 
The perspective of the former with regard to the 
latter was incomparably worse ; differences in 
altitude could not be distinguished with such 
accuracy, and rivers, woods, buildings, churches, 
etc., were less easy to define. Therefore it was 
determined to combine and to use map and photo- 
graph together. The district on the map was 
covered by the lens of the camera, and the developed 
negative was compared with the map. 

Many plans have been formulated to do away with 
the human aerial observer, the most notable of them 
a complicated idea, in which there figured a camera 
with a rotating prism. The prism supported the 
plates and was rotated by means of an electric 
current controlled by a switch on the ground below. 
However, it proved impossible to photograph any 
particular spot, added to which something was 
always going wrong with some part of the delicate 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 71 

machinery. This idea was abandoned for another 
and even more complicated scheme that required 
seven cameras. These seven cameras were placed 
in a large wicker-work basket in such positions that 
six of them pointed through specially made openings 
in the sides, and one pointed downwards through 
the floor. Thus a complete panorama was obtained. 
This plan was afterwards adopted by the British, 
French, and German military authorities alike. 
Later, in the earlier part of the twentieth century, an 
Italian inventor constructed a camera specially for 
air reconnaissance work. This was a permanent 
fixture beneath the under carriage of the machine. 
It was so designed as to hold 300 negatives, which 
were released automatically at given periods. A 
series of views was therefore obtained at regular 
intervals, giving an absolutely consecutive and com- 
plete record of the course of the ground covered in 
the trip. The pilot regulated the time between each 
photograph automatically with the altitude of the 
aeroplane. The higher the altitude the fewer are the 
exposures required. From a height of 3000 feet it is 
estimated that 300 such views would photograph 
completely an area of the surface of the earth of at 
least 160 miles long and one mile broad. 

With regard to the free balloon and airship, with 
the former when well under way the passage is 
smooth, notwithstanding a slight rotary movement, 
which is replaced by a slight throbbing caused by 
the engine or engines, for which allowance must 
be made. 

Light and atmosphere, though of great importance 
for successful photography on the earth, do not there 
play the important part which they do in aerial work. 
For instance, the usual negative is obtained by 
allowing the sun's rays to be reflected off the object 
to be photographed on to the camera lens, and these 



72 AIRFARE 

rays from the sun have to pass through a fairly 
dense atmosphere before reaching the object ; and 
in the case of aircraft they have to be again reflected 
through the dense atmosphere, made up of particles 
which not only reflect but absorb light, back to the 
shutter of the camera. 

It was thought at first to be impossible to operate 
a camera in an aeroplane or a seaplane owing to the 
excessive vibration caused by the engine ; but this 
theory proved wrong, for, given a reliable instan- 
taneous shutter, a clear day and agreeable atmos- 
pherical conditions, really excellent results can be 
obtained. 

Modern conditions have modernized methods. 
To-day a large camera, remarkable for strength and 
clearness of its perspective and improvements of all 
kinds (though what these improvements are one is 
not permitted to state), is fitted in the base of the 
fuselage so that the lens will be pointing at right 
angles with the earth. This is a most important 
detail, for should the camera be at the slightest 
angle past 90 deg. the picture will be out of focus 
in certain parts. 

Perhaps the most useful purpose to which the 
aerial photograph is put is a comparison, day by 
day, of negatives of certain sectors of the line. 
Here a new trench will be discovered one day ; there 
a new gun emplacement another. Thus a constant 
and careful watch can be kept on the enemy's 
present and intended movements. 

Anent this matter, Mr. H. G. Wells, the greatest 
authority of the war, wrote recently, in an article 
in the Daily Chronicle : " An air photograph to an 
inexperienced eye is not a very illuminating thing ; 
one makes out roads, blurs of wood and rather vague 
buildings. But the examiner has an eye that has 
been in training ; he is a picked man ; he has at hand 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 73 

yesterday's photographs, marked maps, and all sorts 
of aids and records. If he is a Frenchman he is only 
too happy to explain his ideas and methods. Here, 
he will point out, is a little difference between the 
German trench beyond the wood since yesterday. 
For a number of reasons he thinks it will be a new 
machine-gun emplacement ; here at the corner of 
the farm wall they have been making another. This 
battery here — isn't it plain ? Well, it's a dummy. 
The grass in front of it hasn't scorched, and there's 
been no serious wear on the road here for a week. 
Presently the Germans will send one or two wagons 
up and down that road and instruct them to make 
figures of eight to imitate scorching on the grass in 
front of the gun. We know all about that. The 
real wear on the road, compare this and this and 
this, ends here at this spot. It turns off into the 
wood. There's a sort of track in the trees. Now 
look where the trees are just a little displaced ! 
(This lens is rather better for that.) That's 
one gun. You see ? Here, I will show you 
another. 

" That process goes on two or three miles behind 
the front line. Very clean young men in white 
overalls do it as if it were a labour of love. And the 
Germans in the trenches, the German gunners, know 
it is going on. They know that in the quickest 
possible way these observations of the aeroplane 
that was over them just now will go to the gunners. 
The careful gunner, firing by the map and correcting 
by aeroplane, kite balloon, or direct observation, 
will be getting on to the located guns in another 
couple of hours. Every day the French print 
special maps showing the guns, sham guns, trenches, 
everything of significance behind the German lines, 
showing everything that has happened in the last 
four-and- twenty hours. It is pitiless. And, as I 



74 AIRFARE 

say, the German army knows of this, and knows 
that it cannot prevent it, because of its aerial weak- 
ness. That knowledge is not least among the forces 
that are crumpling up the German resistance upon 
the Soiume." 

Shells. Red and white, black and grey, snap, 
bark, youf against the clear sky light. Above, the 
frail speck of an aeroplane — but there, aeroplanes 
don't hover. More shells, more flame patches. A 
slight movement — dow r n or up ? Neither. A little 
forward. A mighty sweep. Then, back she goes 
into her original position. Below, field-glasses are 
snapped to angry eyes, gunners work at the gun on 
the grey-green motor trolly vehemently. Range 
8000 feet. Try 8500. More craning of necks. Loud 
detonations at hand. Indescribable passages, up 
and up, up and up into the air — more black and grey 
patches. 

11 Thank heaven those damned Huns can't shoot 
straight/' murmurs the pilot. The observer busies 
himself over his photographic instruments, con- 
juring up from the depths of his boots resonant 
curses upon the fool inventor of aerial photography. 
Lower, he beckons. With a sorry grimace the pilot 
obeys. 

Angry the gunners, louder the guns. Lower ! 
Lower ! Ah, splendid ! Drat the Archies ! Home, 
Jeames ! Like a meteor across the sky the plane 
turns and dashes for home. 

Late afternoon. Early 1916. Battered, weary, 
glorious lines of British infantry falling back upon 
shell-shattered Ypres. At their last gasp there comes 
a Heaven-sent breather from the tornado of bursting 
shells and hordes of Hun soldiery. Battalions begin 
to sort themselves out from the melee. The re- 
mainder seize the opportunity for a well-merited 
doze. To them come that glorious after-glow of 



RECONNAISSANCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 75 

victory, splendidly won. When the bombshell 
bursts. 

A morning's aerial photograph, hastily developed, 
discloses as far as eye can reach, mile upon mile, road 
by road, field by field, dim, indistinct figures : 
advancing infantry and cavalry ! Never was such 
a warlike concourse viewed. 

" Supports ? My personal staff and myself," says 
the C.-in C, " carry on." And carry on they did to 
some purpose, saved, at the last moment, by an 
aerial observer's photo. Later in the war, an 
Admiralty official, after a series of raids on Zee- 
brugge, Bruges, and Blankenburghe, informed us 
that aerial photographic reconnaissance disclosed 
serious damage to naval and military works. 

Among other things, photographic experiments 
during the war have served to show that if the 
surface of the earth has been recently disturbed in 
any way — as a newly constructed trench or gun 
emplacement, or a footpath across a field — it shows 
up most distinctly on the camera negative. Such 
photographs of the " lines " from one end to the 
other are in the possession of both our own and the 
enemy commanders alike. 

The cinematograph instrument has not been made 
use of to any great extent ; but the few results 
obtained are highly satisfactory, and point to its 
continual employment in the near future. 

Another ingenious device is the camera obscura. 
This is practically a large camera built upon the 
ground with its lens pointing upwards. Inside is a 
table on which a white sheet of paper is stretched at 
a convenient height for the observers inside to look 
at and mark with a pencil. An aeroplane flying 
approximately over this camera obscura would 
naturally throw an image on the paper, and the 
observers, by following the course of the aeroplane 



76 AIRFARE 

with a pencil, can tell exactly how far from being 
directly over the camera obscura the pilot is, 
and approximately how fast he is going. Both 
methods are employed in the training of future 
pilots. 



CHAPTER VIII 
TACTICS AND STRATEGY 

TO predict upon an uncertainty has always been 
a dangerous pastime. To predict upon such 
uncertainty biassed by a rather too great element 
of the unexpected renders the pastime doubly 
dangerous. Thus it is with the air. But at least of 
one thing we can be certain. Aviation is practically 
akin to sea navigation. The movements of a 
squadron of aeroplanes in mid-air differ very 
slightly from those of a squadron of light cruisers at 
sea. Particularly is this fact noticeable with the 
airship. The formation of a squadron of Zeppelins 
going into action is " line." One following the 
other in ordered and monotonous regularity. A 
squadron of big ships putting out to sea is surrounded 
and protected by a host of smaller fry, as torpedo 
boats. A bomb-raiding expedition in the air is 
convoyed by smaller and fleeter battleplanes. Will 
naval policy then be applied to the future strategy 
and tactics of the air ? 

Thus far the majority of actual battles up above 
have been waged between single craft of either side. 
This condition is greatly to do with the policy 
adopted by the enemy ; which is invariably to 
remain on the defensive, and seldom to give fight 
without the radius of their own lines. But the day 
is not far distant when aerial battles will take place 
pn a greatly extended scale. When squadron will 

?? 



78 AIRFARE 

meet squadron, or flight will meet flight, and the 
fight will continue until either their ammunition 
has given out, or a sufficient number of machines 
have been " downed " on either side to necessitate 
a retreat. Thus far, then, we may say that aircraft 
have been merely an adjunct to the military offen- 
sive. In the future they will be a factor, and a 
dominating factor at that. This view-point, of 
course, with the exception of the Zeppelin raids, 
and they may be considered more in the light of 
privateers, with a roving commission to destroy 
and damage at will. Which brings us to the matter 
of the various craft. 

In all there are three distinct types of aircraft, and 
of these various types the aeroplane has, thus far, 
best proved its worth, and therefore it is permissible 
for us to conclude that the aeroplane has the most 
promising future. 

And the future of the aeroplane depends to a 
great extent upon the matter of " lift," that depends 
to a great extent on engine-power. And both craft 
and engine depend upon the effort of the designer 
and the construction. The future lies in their hands. 
The more prolific, the more inventive they become, 
the more the aeroplane and similar craft will 
develop. 

Theirs is a responsible and enviable task. There 
are as many different types of aeroplanes as there 
are ships at sea. Each particular grade of work 
requires a particular style of craft. A battleplane, 
for example, must be a craft that is both fast-flying 
and quick-climbing. That is a matter to do with 
the ethics of aerial combat. Reconnaissance craft 
must have ample powers of duration. And a bomb- 
raiding machine requires every available pound of 
lift for spare petrol and bombs, and must be as 
lightly furnished as possible, 



TACTICS AND STRATEGY 79 

Another factor that must be taken into considera- 
tion regarding war aviation of the future is the anti- 
aircraft gun. The firing has increased quite 80 per 
cent in accuracy since the opening stages of the war. 
This is due to constant practice, now covering two 
and a half years. And the more accurate the anti- 
aircraft firing the greater must be the altitude of the 
raiding craft. This again will require a further 
development in engine power. 

So far we have considered the subject solely from 
the view-point of trench warfare ; when the great 
push comes and the opposing armies are constantly 
on the move, what will be the value of aircraft then ? 
Will the work of the airman be rendered useless, or 
will it become the deciding factor ? The majority 
of experts incline to the latter view. We have only 
one precedent for comparison. 

When the German hordes were overrunning 
Belgium in the autumn of 1914, what saved our tiny 
army from annihilation ? Principally the dogged 
tenacity of the British Tommy and the untiring 
efforts of our, then, mere handful of airmen. The 
advent of aircraft enabled us to turn an ignominious 
defeat into a glorious victory. When once we get 
them on the move again, aircraft will prove their 
value as never before have they proved it. Then it 
will be necessary for us to adopt a yet more stringent 
policy of offence to prevent the enemy divining our 
new movements, and this policy will ensure tremen- 
dously heavy casualties. 

Perhaps Germany has realized this fact, and has 
already made the necessary preparations. Be that 
as it may, we receive constant reports from neutral 
visitors of the fact that the enemy is evincing 
signs of considerable activity in the matter of 
construction. To-day almost every factory and 
munition works in Germany is working under high 



80 AIRFARE 

pressure, turning out new aeroplanes and Zeppelins. 
The moral is obvious ! - 

Turning our attention to other craft, the seaplane, 
we may say, is still in the most elementary stage. 
Its upholders, however, vouch for it a great and 
useful future. And as far as this country is con- 
cerned, by reason of our geographical position, it 
behoves us to further the development of the sea- 
plane to the uttermost limits of our power. 

For the rest there remains but the Zeppelin for 
consideration. Allowing for the fortunate results 
of the last two raids, the Zeppelin as an offensive 
unit of the air is non est. For the present. 

It is not to-day that we need fear these cumber- 
some craft, but in the future. Germany, beaten on 
land and on sea, will yet cling to her long-cherished 
dreams of world domination. To this end she is 
already preparing a large and powerful fleet of the 
air. Without a declaration, she could send out under 
cover of darkness a powerful fleet of Zeppelins, 
plentifully supplied with bombs, that would be 
hovering over London before we were even aware of 
her intentions. Another matter to be taken into 
consideration is the possible silencing of the engine 
— which experts consider quite feasible — and the 
development of the aerial torpedo, navigable from 
a distance of as much as five miles, and containing 
an amount of explosive proportionate to a dozen 
bombs. 

Per contra the Zeppelin is of inestimable value as 
a naval scout. On no less than three occasions it has 
been instrumental in saving the enemy High Seas 
Fleet from annihilation. 

On December 16th, 1914, occurred the German 
naval raid on Scarborough and Whitby. We had 
enticed the enemy to the open sea and into a trap. 
By all the rules of warfare their ships were already 



TACTICS AND STRATEGY 81 

as good as sunk. Then, as our ships were closing 
into range, down came the fog. Their Zeppelins 
hung' above and directed the course of the fleet by 
wireless, convoying them into harbour again without 
the loss of a single vessel. 

On the occasion of the battle of Jutland Bank our 
Fleets lay across the North Sea like a great net 
waiting for the enemy to return. They did not 
reach harbour again without a serious engagement. 
But their Zeppelins undoubtedly saved them from 
further disaster by keeping constantly in touch with 
the movements of our Fleet. 

Again, the audacity of Scheer in making use of the 
German High Seas Fleet in the raid off Flamborough 
Head, August 19th, 1916, was warranted by a care- 
fully organized vanguard of Zeppelins which kept 
constant watch upon the only routes open to Jellicoe 
and Beatty, and immediately they were sighted 
gave warning by wireless, and the enemy retired at 
full speed. Again without loss. 



CHAPTER IX 
BOMB RAIDS 

VAGUE indeed are the opinions held by the 
general public as regards aerial bombardment. 
The very novelty of the affair subscribes to its bar- 
barousness. Zeppelin and aeroplane raids on this 
country are considered the last word in Teuton 
Kultur. Yet, looking at the matter from an un- 
biassed point of view, such raids are perfectly 
legitimate ! 

To repeat : aircraft have revolutionized the 
theories of warfare for all time. Formerly the 
battle area was confined to the theatre of operations, 
and the range of artillery fire. Now it has general- 
ized. The entire air-shore within the radius of the 
long-distance aeroplanes is the battle area. A 
firing-line is non-existent. The war is carried to the 
uttermost boundaries of the countries engaged, 
either by Zeppelin or super-aeroplane. 

Of the two craft the former may be said to be the 
ideal night-raider. It has a decided advantage in 
the matter of bomb-space aboard. Considerably 
heavier bombs can be carried. It is also able to 
hover over its objective. The best type of aeroplane 
for this class of work is one with good powers of 
duration and a reliable engine. And usually a one- 
manned craft to allow sufficient space for spare 
bombs. 

The guns form the most formidable deterrent to 
successful air-raiding. With regard to the enemy, 

82 



BOMB RAIDS 



83 



the majority of his A. A. guns are mobile — that is to 
say, they are mounted on either motor-lorries or 
railway-trucks and can be moved quickly and 
easily from place to place. Another method is to 




Direction of Prevailing Wind. 






>■ n Direction of Prevailing 
K ^Wind. 



J^0i6/££t/V<» 



FIG. 4. HOW BOMBS ARE DROPPED FROM AIRCRAFT 

(Showing the course of the falling" projectile.) 

place them in a stationary position and cross two 
guns, with the muzzles at some twenty degrees 
distance, and firing automatically. Thus the 
bottom gun would open fire at a range of 7000 feet. 
The airman would immediately climb higher, only 
to find himself within range of the upper gun, 



84 AIRFARE 

Again, for night firing, a searchlight and a gun would 
be fixed side by side, so that no unnecessary time 
would be lost in getting the range once the objective 
had been picked up by the light. 

The matter of bomb-dropping is not an indis- 
criminate one. Bombs are not taken up haphazard 
in the body of the craft, and hurled forth, indis- 
criminately, by hand. A rack is fitted up beneath 
the under-carriage, with clasps for a limited number 
of projectiles. It is manipulated by a lever, along 
the side of the fuselage. To aid in the accuracy of 
the drop, a special bomb-dropping sight is fitted by 
the control-lever. This, however, only allows for 
altitude. For the rest the speed of the craft, the 
velocity of the wind, the drift in the course, and the 
direction of the objective must be taken into 
account. The conditions most favourable are a clear 
sunny day, with the nose of the aeroplane pointing 
at the objective, and the craft travelling " down 
wind "— with the wind at the back of it — as shown 
in Fig. 4. The French have a somewhat different 
apparatus for bomb-dropping ; a tube, not unlike 
that in use for torpedoes at sea ! 

There are two species of bombs, incendiary and 
explosive. The greatest difficulty experienced with 
the latter, up to the time of writing, is that the force 
of the weight of the drop carries them several feet 
beneath the surface of the earth before the detonator 
acts, and, as the f orce of the explosion is for the most 
part downward and lateral, the projectile loses con- 
siderable advantage in the matter of death and 
destruction. 

Other forms of projectiles are the grenade, ex- 
plosive dart, and, latest of all, the American aerial 
torpedo. In many respects this torpedo can be com- 
pared to the standard field-gun shell. For instance, 
the airman calculates the distance he is from hi§ 




FIG. 5. SECTIONAL VIEW OF AERIAL TORPEDO, 
SHOWING THE TIME-FUSE AND THE CONTACT 
DETONATOR 

To face page 85 






BOMB RAIDS 85 

target and sets the nose of the torpedo opposite the 
graduated ring b (see Fig. 5), which corresponds to 
this distance. The bomb is then released and the 
momentum of the first 50 feet of descent fires the 
auxiliary primer n, this being accomplished by the 
rotary motion of the propeller x, mounted on the 
shaft c. The method by which this is brought about 
is ingenious. The propeller shaft, by means of the 
thread R, frees the spherical end of the stirrup cup- 
string e, the arms of which have until now been 
engaged in a recess in the cylinder wall. With 
nothing to hold it back the spring G forces the 
plunger f upward, bringing its primer h in contact 
with the firing-pin 1. 

The flame that results is carried through the vent 
w to the cylinder of plaited rope powder composi- 
tion K. This in turn burns away releasing the 
plunger stem l, which is forced by the spring p into 
the chamber below. It is then and for the first time 
that -the picric acid booster charge at v is incased 
around the detonator n, through the action of the 
spring p. Meanwhile the primer o has been brought 
in contact with the firing-pin j, and the flame is 
carried to the detonator by means of the long or 
shortened time trains determined by the setting of 
the nose of the torpedo. The explosion of the main 
charge follows as soon as the flame reaches the 
detonator. 

Now supposing the pilot misjudged the distance 
of the target so that the setting of the time fuse 
would bring the explosion some time after the 
torpedo had reached its mark, which would probably 
mean that the torpedo would fail to accomplish its 
mission. It is to meet just such a condition that the 
present torpedo is also equipped with a contact 
detonator or impact detonator located in the rear 
of the stem. The firing-pin is seen at z, the primer 



86 AIRFARE 

at s, the safety-wire at t. The force of the detonator 
explosion is communicated to the main charge, and 
so at its worst the torpedo is as effective as the best 
contact exploding bomb. Lastly, u is a steering 
vane for guiding the torpedo towards its mark. 

These torpedoes, tested by the American Army 
officials at Mineola, are known as the Barlow torpedo, 
and are made at the Frankford Arsenal. Quite 
naturally the details of this torpedo are being care- 
fully guarded, although in its main essentials it 
probably follows the design of the torpedo described 
in the foregoing. 

It must be understood that bomb-raids for the 
most part are strategical. The enemy aeroplane, 
seaplane, and Zeppelin raids are by no means wild 
eleventh-hour ventures, but part and parcel of the 
German general offensive. To each effort there 
accrues more than a small amount of danger ; 
danger alike to craft that cost, in the case of the 
Zeppelin, roughly £240,000 apiece to construct, and 
to personnel, who require at least twelve months' 
preliminary training. 

With the use of aircraft in war there are two 
results that can be attained : the one military, the 
other moral. Apparently the enemy hoped and 
expected to achieve both. Whether or not he was 
successful in his aim must be judged from the effects 
of each respective raid. 

To a minor degree he did achieve a military 
result, which requires the bombardment or destruc- 
tion of some military area, as the dropping of bombs 
on a dockyard, munition factory, barracks, harbour, 
fortress, or railway junction ; or the serious dis- 
location of sea, railway, or road traffic. But moral 
result was entirely lacking. 

This moral result is peculiarly adaptable to pre- 
vailing circumstances. In the case in point, the 



BOMB RAIDS 87 

enemy was burdened with the idea that he could 
introduce a state of panic and wholesale fear into the 
civilian population of this country. Again he 
failed miserably in the attempt. 

That excellent institution The Hague Convention 
was thrust upon the world before the day of the 
aeroplane as a serious factor of war, but neverthe- 
less there are several clauses therein contained 
which apply peculiarly to aerial bombardment. 
This code permits of the bombardment of the posi- 
tions hitherto mentioned, but adds a proviso that 
notice must be given to allow non-combatants to 
reach a place of safety. 

It should be noted, earlier in the war, in deference 
to the Convention our Admiralty officials stated in 
a communique that " Instructions are always issued 
to confine the attacks to points of military impor- 
tance, and every effort is made by the flying officer 
to avoid dropping bombs on any residential portion 
of the towns/' 

Again, the question arises, that as London and 
other large areas are now defended by anti-aircraft 
artillery, are they still defenceless cities ? As to the 
matter of warning in a Zeppelin or other raid, such 
a course would be ludicrous from the enemy's point 
of view, as the primary element of such a manoeuvre 
is that of surprise. 

Now, having discussed the raison d'etre, let us turn 
our attention to the craft and the various methods 
they employ. The principal Zeppelin bases are 
situated at Heligoland, Kiel, Friedrichshaven, 
Munich, and Brussels, though it is extremely prob- 
able that the latter has long since been abandoned 
owing to its proximity to the Allied lines, and the 
Hun's well-merited fear of the Allied airmen. Each 
town is, roughly, 600 miles distant from Great 
Britain, and, with one exception, the distance 



88 AIRFARE 

travelled is 90 per cent over the sea. This is a great 
drawback to raids, and until the Zeppelin is further 
developed, the North Sea will supply a useful 
natural defence. 

Next in order comes the matter of weather. Rain, 
snow, or sleet obscures landmarks, and thus enhances 
the difficulties of navigation. With regard to rain 
particularly. Water is eight hundred times heavier 
than air, and interferes considerably with the buoy- 
ancy of the craft. Fog, for obvious reasons, renders 
flying impossible. With a moonlit background the 
Zeppelin is a prominent and easy target for the anti- 
aircraft gunners. Also there are various electrical 
disturbances in the air, extremely dangerous to 
gas-borne craft ; and high winds, those from the 
south, south-west, and west being particularly 
dangerous and choppy. 

Allowing for this matter of weather, and a com- 
parison of Zeppelin activities of former years, shows 
us that the most probable Zeppelin periods for 1917 
are : — 

April I4th-May 8th. 
August 8th-August 18th. 
September gth-September 23rd. 
October 7th-October 17th. 
November 7th-November 15th. 
December 7th-December 15th. 

Setting out in the late afternoon, with a heavy 
load of bombs, petrol, etc., aboard, it is some little 
time before the Zeppelin is able to rise to anything 
like a decent altitude, although just previous to 
leaving the ground the ballonets have been pumped 
almost empty of weight-supplying air. The naviga- 
tion of the craft is directed across the North Sea by 
submarines, that keep in contact by means of wireless 
communication. 



BOMB RAIDS 

Just before dusk, one or the other of the off-coast 
lightships is sighted, and immediately the craft 
rises to a great altitude. 

Then the real dangers and difficulties of the trip 
commence. A flight over a darkened enemy country, 
plentifully supplied with anti-aircraft guns. 

Whether the darkening of the towns adds to the 
difficulty of the navigation is a matter for the 
authorities to decide. Apparently they think so ! 
But there are many natural landmarks that cannot 
be shrouded. 

The return journey is a more ticklish enterprise. 
The North Sea has to be recrossed, this time in the 
inky blackness, and the Zeppelins have to hover up 
aloft until day breaks and a landing is possible. 

The daylight aeroplane raid is another and con- 
siderably more dangerous phase. The latest German 
machines, and particularly the Halberstadt, with 
its 240 horse-power Benz engine, are capable of 
flying at an altitude of 15,000 feet and over. At 
such a height marks of nationality are extremely 
hard to distinguish, and a fast moving object makes 
a difficult target for the anti-aircraft gunners. 

Day after day aeroplanes pass safely through anti- 
aircraft fire at a lesser altitude, with an average 
8 per cent loss, across the firing-line. Why not over 
this country ? 

The solo attempt on London is but preliminary 
to raids on a larger and more extended scale. It is 
a prescient danger, and one that can only be avoided 
by a constant patrol of scouting British craft. 

It is impossible to foretell to what limits the 
enemy may go when smarting under humiliating 
defeats on land and sea, and a gigantic and devasta- 
ting aeroplane raid on London is by no means with- 
out the limit of his intentions. 

But not so much the present war, it is the future 



go AIRFARE 

we must take into consideration. Germany's air 
fleets will always remain an unwelcome menace to 
our national safety. 

In the past he did not scruple to send his hordes 
of soldiers swarming through Belgium without 
preliminary warning ; and in the future he will no 
less scruple over a sudden and gigantic air raid. 
For the first and most important element of aerial 
warfare is surprise. 

To guard against this danger we must destroy 
Germany's air fleet at the earliest possible oppor- 
tunity, and by retaliation carry the war into the 
enemy's country, to keep him there, busily engaged. 



CHAPTER X 

AERIAL COMBAT 

" HP WO German aeroplanes were brought down 
X yesterday in air fighting/' runs the terse, 
intelligible phrase that occurs almost daily in the 
British Official, with a possible variety in the 
number of casualties. The scene of action lies 
among the grey, racing clouds, across the shell- 
specked heavens, south to the horizon of the mottled- 
grey war area, north to the peaceful blue sweep that 
hides the white cliffs of Dover behind the morning 
mist. Creeping above the clouds are small, lithe 
forms, that plunge suddenly downward, like alba- 
trosses, upon their unsuspecting prey ; wheeling, 
turning, diving in that strange, thin air, two 
and three miles above the surface of the battle- 
field. 

The highway of the air is broad and free ; high 
crawl the powerful twin-engine battleplanes, that 
scour the skies for enemy craft, the lords of the 
heavens. Below them ride the slower and more 
cumbersome reconnaissance and raiding machines, 
convoyed on either side by strongly armed craft ; 
here a " flight " directing artillery fire, there a 
squadron of fleet, bombing biplanes. Dawn and 
twilight the highway is awhirr with adventurous 
craft. 

The highway, for the air is own cousin to the sea. 
The sinister craft that climb beneath the stars, and 

91 



g2 AIRFARE 

the swaying specks of the daylight hours are the 
privateers of modern war. Their mission ? None 
can say ! Only the pilot knows, and he is master of 
his craft to wander where he will. But in flying logs 
we come across such quotations as mentioned by 
Beach Thomas in the Daily Mail: "A general 
engagement then took place. Two fleets swept up 
to give battle. Early in the action one of our pilots 
was severely wounded, but fought on and sunk an 
enemy ship. Later, when the first squadrons were 
well in action, the enemy brought up supports, 
raising the number of first-class vessels from six to 
ten, of which four were eventually sunk. The final 
flight of the enemy occurred upon the arrival of a 
single supporting ship from our side. 

" A British pilot watching the sky from harbour 
saw the battle from afar and hurried his machine 
out, and, so quickly do these new craft climb, was 
just in time to take a hand in the fighting, in spite 
of a long journey of a climb of 12,000 feet. He him- 
self shot down one of these enemy planes almost 
instantly, whereon the rest scattered and fled." 

There must have been a great breath from the sea 
when aircraft first took the skies that swept ram- 
pant all the customs and traditions of the older 
Service into this prodigy of the war. For it was 
thoroughly human, typically British, and delight- 
fully sporting. It was the code of the football field 
and of the cricket ground. A code from which the 
word defeat was entirely eliminated ; where the 
mind shunned fear, and the will was hardened to all 
kind of mishap and adventure. In a word, it was to 
always fight clean and fair. 

This untrained body — the Flying Corps — was 
developed with a thoroughness and rapidity that 
outdid even the magic Kitchener Armies. Result- 
ingly, Britain very soon held the supremacy of the 



AERIAL COMBAT 93 

air. This necessitates maintaining a ceaseless 
photographic reconnaissance far behind the enemy's 
trenches, to spot for the heavy guns along an ex- 
tended front, and to " keep the wind up " the Boche 
so that for every ten British aeroplanes that crossed 
the German lines barely one of his would dare to 
cross ours. 





j;\rw 



FIG. 6. RANGE OF MACHINE-GUN FIRE FROM AEROPLANES 

(a) Limited. (b) Unlimited. 

The future pilot was instructed by young, seasoned 
warriors of the early days, trained upon the fas- 
cinatingly narrated personal encounter and adven- 
ture. That training to-day is as comprehensive as 
beforetime it was haphazard. 

A school of aerial gunnery has been established 
where practice from the air takes place against 
every form of target, both on the ground and in 
the air. 

This matter of atrial gunnery is the most impor- 



94 AIRFARE 

tant of all to the aerial fighter. And the possibilities 
of gunfire vary greatly with the type of craft. With 
some, an automatic control of the engine regulates 
the gun to firing between the revolving propeller 
blades. With others, again — with the engine at the 
rear — a yet greater field of fire is possible. This 
is best indicated in Fig. 6, where we discover 

(a) has a restricted area of fire, while that of (b) is 
entirely unrestricted. The advantage of (a) over 

(b) can hardly be imagined. 

Fighting is also practised by various methods ; 
two machines may be sent up to manoeuvre one 
against another, both trying to attack, or the pupil 
is sent up while the instructor tries to attack him, 
or vice versa, or an instructor goes out and attacks 
a group of pupils returning from a cross-country 
flight, and so on. The air fighter, when fully trained, 
is a specialist, and confines his attention to this type 
of work alone. 

Apart from being a useful pilot he must be able to 
read maps, fire machine-guns, and send wireless 
messages accurately. Risks and adventures he will 
encounter in plenty, against which he must be 
endowed with imperturbable courage and great 
initiative. It is the unexpected that invariably 
carries the aerial combat ; the manoeuvre for which 
one's opponent is unprepared. 

A naval pilot flying a Nieuport — the terrible 
" baby ,J of the skies — ten miles out from the shores 
of the North Sea, and when approaching Ostend, at 
about 12,000 feet, encountered a German seaplane. 
The latter had glimpsed him from afar, and man- 
oeuvred into a position behind and below his course. 
Too late the British airman was aware of his prox- 
imity, and, in an endeavour to retrieve himself, 
executed a steep glide over the enemy, who passed 
underneath, Thus he gained the desired position 



AERIAL COMBAT 95 

and opened fire at a range of 100 yards. The enemy 
machine burst into flames, falling headlong to 
the ground. By unexpectedly looping he was 
able to convert a possible defeat into a certain 
victory. 

A brother pilot, on six different occasions in 
one flight, attacked and drove off hostile air- 
craft which threatened the bombing machines 
that he was escorting, one enemy machine going 
down. 

On another occasion a British airman, unable to 
reach his opponent by any other method, charged 
him direct from a short distance. The German, who 
must have been a cool fellow, kept a perfect bee-line 
to the end, apparently seeking mutual destruction. 
Our pilot turned at the last moment and rammed, 
not the centre, but the right wing of the opposing 
craft, which he carried away, and the German plane 
fell, helpless, to the ground. The British machine 
was badly damaged, but still airworthy, and the 
engines carried it wobbling but safely into harbour. 

Aerial combat requires a special class of aero- 
plane, with a powerful engine, rapid in its move- 
ments, and fast to climb. The best types are either 
a fast single-seater fighting plane, a double-engine 
battleplane, or, latest of all, a triplane — triple-decker 
aeroplane. 

It must be realized that one of these craft, whether 
British or German, can do what it pleases with most 
of the planes designed for observation or photo- 
graphy. They are like destroyers as compared with 
merchant vessels. The air being the big place it is, 
a good number of these more cumbrous craft must 
necessarily fall victims to the fighting ships whoso- 
ever rules the air. Most of our losses are among this 
unwarlike flotilla. Of course, these slower, clumsier 
craft can give an account of themselves, but they 



g6 AIRFARE 

have little chance at the best against the pace and 
climbing power of a heavily armed vessel. 

The ethics of aerial combat are the simplest and 
oldest in the world. For as many centuries as there 
is history, the winged denizens of the skies have been 
giving valuable demonstrations. Watch two com- 
mon or garden sparrows ; the fight develops, up- 
ward — upward — upward. All the time both 
opponents are struggling for the upper berth. An 
air fight differs in no respect. The back is the 
human's most defenceless spot. Above and behind 
is the best position in aerial combat. An air pilot 
with a rakish machine - gunfire pouring into his 
nethermost parts is helpless. He might well, as a 
Hun humorist did recently, hold aloft his arms, 
with a despairing " Kamerad." It is his only 
chance to escape a drop of some thousand feet and 
death. 

The air fight is the sole relic of old-time romantic 
warfare. It is a matter of wits and courage, strength 
and endurance to the end. Those modern knights 
ride their petrol steeds, with their gun-lances atilt 
their shoulders, in the lists of the clouds and bound- 
less eternity, with the smiling Queen of Victory 
awaiting their victorious return below. Her name 
is no commonplace feminine equivalent, but the 
proud cognomen Duty. 

Of these graceful duels one cannot forbear to 
mention the affair of Rouzier Dorcieres, a personality 
famous in two continents ; a composite of Cyrano 
de Bergerac and d'Artagnan. Dorcieres was premier 
duellist of the great Republic across the Channel. 
More than a score of victorious duels could he claim. 
But the greatest was in the clouds, the last — fought 
not for self -glory, but for the honour of his beloved 
France. The story was quoted in a recent number 
of the Weekly Dispatch, 




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AERIAL COMBAT 97 

Wherever Dorcieres travelled, his reputation 
preceded him. At Zurich, in 1910, he was publicly 
insulted by an officer of the Prussian Guards. The 
latter approached him after dinner, as Dorcieres 
was sipping his coffee in the lounge. 

" So you are Rouzier Dorcieres ? " he said sneer- 
ingly. " I recognize you. And they say you have 
never been touched in a duel. Well, I am sorry I 
have never had the good fortune to meet you in 
one. 

" But you will have the chance to meet me," 
replied Dorcieres heatedly. 

The Prussian's expression grew dark. " Mon- 
sieur," he said, " I shall meet you here before ten 
o'clock with my seconds and the swords. We will 
settle this affair before I depart. Will you await 
me ? " 

The duellist waited, but no Prussian appeared. 
He had departed hurriedly. And from that evening 
he registered a mental vow to obtain satisfaction 
from his cowardly assailant, somewhere, sometime, 
somehow. 

With this object he enlisted in the French Air 
Service on the outbreak of war. Said his pilot of 
Rouzier Dorcieres :• — 

" He was the strangest machine gunner I ever 
had. Unlike other gunners, he always carried 
binoculars, and when we sighted and approached 
a Boche he spent his time in peering intently at the 
occupants of the enemy machine instead of pre- 
paring his mitrailleuse anxiously as most gunners do. 

" As we circled near the German machine in his 
last fight, Dorcieres passed me a scrap of paper. On 
it he had scrawled a request that I swoop past the 
German as near as I could. Instantly I divined his 
reason — and his reason for always carrying and 
using his high-power glasses. He thought he 



98 AIRFARE 

recognized one of the occupants of the other aero- 
plane. 

" Our fuselage cracked and splintered as the 
leaden hail perforated the car, and the choking gasps 
that I heard behind me were the positive indications 
that my gunner had been hit. I turned upward, as 
my motor was undamaged, and climbed with the 
German. Then we both planed and approached 
each other, and the test was which of the two 
machine-gunners would prove to be the better man. 

" Dorcieres's first shot at the new elevation must 
have killed the enemy gunner. And his torrent of 
bullets ripped off the tail of the Fokker and it dived 
into our lines like a stone, nose down. 

" I piqued down, too, and landed within fifty 
yards of the broken Boche car and its occupants. 
Two stretchers were waiting there for us, but I was 
unhurt, miraculously. We put Dorcieres in one, 
tenderly as a baby, and then started off. But he had 
seen the wreck of the Fokker there and he begged 
that we stop beside it. 

" Beside the German machine were the pilot and 
the gunner, both dead. By a superhuman effort 
my dying gunner raised himself on his elbow. He 
gazed at the battered dead face of the enemy 
machine-gunner. 

" ' It is he/ was all he said. And we carried him 
to the field hospital/ ' 

The principal methods of aerial attack are the 
dropping of incendiary and explosive bombs, the 
use of firearms, as a Remington or Winchester 
repeater — now 7 almost extinct — the dropping of 
hand-grenades, and, more effective than any, the 
use of the Lewis machine-gun. 

This gun fires through the blades of the propeller, 
which deflect at least 5 per cent of the bullets ; 
thus firing is a one-man job, The difficulty for a 



AERIAL COMBAT 99 

man to pilot and fire at the same time is beyond 
comprehension ; two men at least are required, the 
one to direct the course of the craft on to the object, 
the other to fire the gun. 

Another important matter is to obtain a suitable 
mounting for the gun, namely, one that allows the 
largest possible angle of elevation and depression. 
The advantage accruing to a machine with an area 
of gunfire that includes every position and angle is 
enormous. The best direction to fire the gun 
depends largely on the type of machine. Suiting the 
machine to the gun, the " pusher," with propeller 
in the rear, offers a clear bow. The " tractor " is 
impeded by the propeller blades and the limited 
space in which the gunner has to work. 

Next in importance is the matter of manoeuvring. 
When giving chase to another machine the pilot 
must always keep his enemy in view ; his own 
machine, as much as possible, out of sight. Once 
he takes his eyes off the enemy in mid-air, he is apt 
to lose sight of him altogether. He must always 
endeavour to place himself between the enemy and 
the sun, and always keep him on the gunner's left 
hand. Finally, he must always turn toward the 
enemy, never away from him. 

Entering into the actual combat is, by nature, 
more of a tactical manoeuvre. As yet it is on too 
minor a scale to be classed as strategical. That is 
with the exception of the one great fight of March, 
19 17, when five British aeroplanes fought twenty- 
seven Germans, and sent eight to earth, crippled or 
in flames. 

It was a day of great heat. There was a haze so 
thick that the ground was barely visible. Our men 
started late in the afternoon, and at five o'clock were 
well over the enemy country when, with the sun at 
their backs, they saw two enemy machines ahead. 



ioo AIRFARE 

They endeavoured to close, the enemy making some 
show of fighting. However, it was only a show, for 
as our leading machines drew near the Germans 
turned and made with all speed for home. Our 
machines gave chase and were led into a decoy. 
Out of the haze and void on all sides new fleets came 
closing in. The new arrivals flew in three forma- 
tions, two of which contained eight machines, the 
other nine, making twenty-five craft in all, to whom 
the other two, which now ceased to run away, joined 
themselves, making a minimum of twenty-seven 
machines in all. 

One of the enemy fleets, taking advantage of the 
thick air, had passed behind our little squadron and 
came at it, as from the direction of our own lines, 
straight between it and the sun — an awkward 
direction. The other fleets came from the north and 
south-east. As they approached they spread out so 
that our men were ringed around with enemies on 
every side. 

The order to attack, though given, was hardly 
needed. Each one of our five turned at once for the 
enemy who was nearest. The fight began at about 
11,000 feet, but in the course of the things that 
followed it ranged anywhere from 3000 to 12,000 
up and down the ladders of heaven. And an extra- 
ordinary fact is that, all the while that it went on, 
the German anti-aircraft guns below kept at work. 
Usually, as soon as aeroplanes engage overhead, the 
" Archies " are silent for fear of hitting the wrong 
man. 

Such a general melee inevitably breaks up into a 
series of individual fights. " Formation/' as it is 
technically known, breaks up, but nothing could 
have surpassed the way in which our men fought. 
Not one of them ever allowed himself to be cut off 
and isolated from the rest. Not one failed to be 



AERIAL COMBAT ioi 

ready when a friend was in imminent danger to turn 
to his assistance. This is the more remarkable as, 
with the exception of the Flight Leader, all the pilots 
were practically new men, with little experience of 
fighting. Some had only been in France a fortnight. 
Yet no veterans could have exceeded these young- 
sters in coolness and fighting judgment. As for the 
Flight Commander himself, he, still a youth, may 
fairly be called a veteran, for in that battle he 
reached his seventeenth German victim. 

During the course of the fight, one of our machines 
plunged down with flames bursting from its reserve 
petrol tank. An enemy, glimpsing an easy quarry, 
dived for the flaming ruin as it fell, but, quicker 
than he, a comrade plunged down to his aid. And 
while our crippled machine, still belching flames, 
slid off, with its nose set for home, the German, 
mortally hit, dropped like a stone. 

Strangely enough, our burning aeroplane got 
home. The wreckage was a pitiful sight to view ; 
with the reserve petrol tank on the roof bearing two 
bullet holes on one side, and great ragged tears on 
the other where the bullets passed out. The whole 
tank was scorched and crumpled. The flames had 
burnt away the whole central span of the upper 
plane. Yet, like a great blazing meteor, it crossed 
our lines and came to earth, not indeed at its own 
home, but on safe and friendly ground ; and as 
another airman said in admiration, " He made a 
topping landing/' 

The " Archie " — anti-aircraft shell— is the worst 
enemy a fighting airman has to face. There is a 
natural and not to be wondered at enmity between 
our aeroplanes and the anti-aircraft guns of the 
Germans. Though one must not imagine that a 
British aeroplane takes a straffing from Archie as 
a matter of course. Time after time they have 



io2 AIRFARE 

shown their resentment by diving at the pre- 
sumptuous batteries and scattering their crews with 
rapid bursts of machine-gun bullets, just as by 
night they have dived at searchlights behind the 
German lines. Here the simile ends, however, for 
instead of being singed the planes have shot and 
bombed the lights to darkness. 

Dawn is breaking when No. 4 returns, tired-eyed 
and more monosyllabic than ever. It came off all 
right, but No. 3 had seemed to lose control and 
slide down the beam of a searchlight with shell and 
balls of red fire (some new stunt, he supposed) 
bursting all about her. However, she got her 
bombs off first, and touched up something that 
sent a flame 200 feet into the air. He himself 
bombed a group of searchlights that were annoying 
him, and some trucks in a railway siding. The 
speaker has an ugly shrapnel wound in the thigh, 
and observes with grave humour that his boots are 
full of blood — this is a Navy joke by the way. Also 
that he could do with a drink. 

But it came off all right. 

Since our aerial offensive began the Germans have 
rushed many anti-aircraft batteries to the Western 
Froat in an effort to check the care-free manner 
with which we cross their line. They are barking all 
through the day and often far into the night. One 
of these new batteries, larger and noisier than most 
of its truculent brothers, incurred the special 
disfavour of a certain squadron a short time ago ; 
not that it was doing any particular damage to 
anything or anybody, but it was just deemed too 
blatant and noisy to exist any longer. So the 
squadron flew up one bright afternoon, drew the 
fire of the battery, then closed in upon it, and let go 
with 124 bombs. 

British pilots, when they get peevish, rather like 



AERIAL COMBAT 103 

having a go at the guns. When they get tossed 
about by a too-familiar big howitzer shell hurling 
by in the air, it is not an uncommon thing for them 
to hunt down the annoying gun and admonish it to 
better manners in the convincing lexicon of the 
Lewis gun. 

The most thrilling combat of the war occurred 
between six British scouts and eight Germans. It 
was an affair of wits as well as machines. 

In the evening, towards sunset — about eight 
o'clock, to be precise — skirting the low-lying, dark 
grey clouds, there crept the British patrol, like 
a covey of wild ducks winging home to roost. 
Over the firing lines they passed, almost unnoticed. 
When well into the enemy's country they en- 
countered the German craft. The latter fled 
hurriedly. Our machines gave chase, eventually 
overtaking them. 

The battle closed in, growing furious. Wings 
scraped wings, and the fighting pilots could look 
each other squarely in the eyes. The leading 
British machine dived at the nearest German. The 
latter went down 4000 feet, in a spin, hopelessly out 
of control. 

Out of the melee there plunged two craft, one 
above the other, driving him down. The harassed 
machine was British. Immediately one of his 
comrades, having despatched the machine with 
which he had been engaged, dived down to his 
rescue. The enemy was too intent on his prey to 
notice the British machine at the back of him. 
With a single tray of ammunition he went down, 
falling over and over. 

Another pilot of the patrol, meantime, had 
attacked two enemy planes that were in the down- 
ward procession started by the leader. The first 
one of these soon cried enough, and cleared away 



104 AIRFARE 

to the east, and having got on to the second air- 
craft's tail, he drove him down with a spin, but 
later he seemed to flatten out and, in the language 
of the corps, " was apparently all O.K." The 
British pilot was pretty close to the ground now, so 
he turned and climbed to 9000 feet, where he 
attacked another German, and the two fought all 
the way down to 4000 feet, when the German, with 
a riddled machine, went plunging downward to an 
inevitable crash. 

The greatest of all British fighting airmen was the 
late Captain Ball, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., a short, lithe, 
monosyllabic youth in the early twenties. This 
splendid pilot had brought down no fewer than 
forty-three enemy aeroplanes and one captive 
balloon, and figured in countless adventures. He was 
the " Scarlet Pimpernel " of the air, always waiting, 
waiting above the clouds and mist, over the enemy's 
country. Below, British aeroplanes would suddenly 
be attacked in overwhelming numbers. Down 
would come the avenger with a mighty sweep, and 
the enemy would clear off, pell-mell. For his craft 
and manner of handling it were known and respected 
by friend and foe alike. 

Captain Ball first achieved fame when on escort 
duty to a bombing raid. Returning, after a useful 
morning's work, they encountered four enemy 
battleplanes in formation. His was the only fighting 
craft of the patrol, but he immediately dashed 
forward to give battle. The enemy waited the 
onslaught with dignified self-assurance. When, 
suddenly, they found this " mad " Britisher was 
performing the most unusual manoeuvres over their 
heads. Flying by a rapid mental calculation — as 
was invariably his rule — he had realised that, hope- 
lessly outnumbered though he was, he could yet save 
himself, and the machines in his charge, if he could 



AERIAL COMBAT 105 

climb to a certain position. This he proceeded to 
do, first baffling the enemy with a series of most 
unusual turns and dives. 

At last he had climbed to the necessary altitude, 
and diving down on them broke up their formation 
in hopeless disorder, engaging hotly with the 
nearest enemy craft. The latter plunged earthward, 
wreathed in smoke and flame. Ball followed to 
within 500 feet of the mouth of the German guns, to 
make sure it was wrecked. 

Further on they encountered a large patrol of 
twelve German machines. Before giving the enemy 
time to think out a possible offensive, he repeated 
his former tactics, again breaking them up, and 
driving one down. One against twelve ! Enemy 
reinforcements came speeding up. Turning, climb- 
ing, wheeling, diving suddenly this way, suddenly 
that, the tiny British machine kept them all at bay, 
and drove another, flaming, to the ground. 

On another occasion he attacked a group of seven 
enemy machines single-handed. The leading machine 
he shot down, and went after the others, which 
were retiring hastily. Within ten yards of another 
enemy machine he opened rapid fire and brought 
him down on to the roof of a house in a village in our 
lines. He then returned to his aerodrome for more 
ammunition, and encountered three more fighting 
planes. These he drove to the ground in rapid 
succession. When, finally, his day's work was 
completed, he glided home, his craft riddled 
from nose to tail with over three hundred bullet 
holes. 

Towards the end, the enemy, who both feared and 
respected this daring airman, laid many traps for 
his destruction. Far from avoiding them, however, 
he deliberately went out of his way to match his 
wits against theirs, always returning unscathed, and, 



io6 AIRFARE 

from being the victim, added further victims to his 
own ever-growing total. 

Almost the last aerial battle in which Captain 
Ball took part occurred when he was out with a 
patrol squadron, which encountered a German 
machine, and riddling it with bullets, drove it 
down. 

Described by the correspondent of the Evening 
Standard, it read as follows : — 

" Four red Albatross machines then came up, and 
a brother officer of Captain Ball, who may be called 

Captain X , engaged one of them at close range. 

The German manoeuvred for a favourable position, 
and his opponent dived and shook him off. Climb- 
ing again, Captain X pursued another of the red 

enemy squadron, and fought it for a considerable 
time, the German machine being outmanoeuvred 
and sent crashing to earth. 

" Then Captain X engaged a third machine, 

but he was shot through the wrist, and the top of 
his control lever was carried away. Although 
suffering great pain and further handicapped by the 
damage to his aeroplane, he succeeded in landing 
in the British lines without further injury, and then 
fainted." 

Captain Ball had many thrilling fights during 
those last few days, bringing down three enemy 
machines and putting many others to flight. One 
day, while patrolling, he sighted two hostile craft, 
and as he was fairly low, he flew away from them, 
climbing steadily. When the German aeroplanes 
were quite near his tail he swerved sharply, slid 
underneath one of his opponents, and turned on 
his machine-gun. The German fell out of control. 

He then manoeuvred in order to attack the second 
enemy machine, but it flew straight at him, firing 
steadily. Captain Ball returned the fire as the 



AERIAL COMBAT io? 

German came full tilt at him, and a collision seemed 
inevitable, when the hostile machine suddenly went 
down. The engine of Captain Ball's machine was 
hit and the pilot drenched with oil. 

No other hostile aircraft were in sight, so he 
dropped and saw both German aeroplanes lying 
completely wrecked within four hundred yards of 
each other. 

As he came home he fell in with two other hostile 
aircraft, but as his ammunition was exhausted and 
his sights covered with oil, he reluctantly " put his 
nose down " and returned to his aerodrome. 

Last seen, Captain Ball was disappearing over the 
Hun lines in the fading light. 



CHAPTER XI 

WIRELESS AND DIRECTION OF 
ARTILLERY FIRE 

THE value of aerial artillery direction may best 
be judged by the value of artillery in the war. 
The latter has invariably paved the way for the 
infantry and cavalry attack. To make a forward 
movement with infantry in these days of highly 
developed scientific weapons without a prelimin- 
ary artillery bombardment would be to court 
disaster. 

The accuracy of such bombardment is essential ; 
thus it was at Mons and the Marne, where the hordes 
of German soldiery failed to force back our thin, 
exhausted lines ; the latter gave way, step by step, 
in face of a murderous artillery fire. Back and 
back until our aircraft began to make themselves 
felt, and the French airmen became largely re- 
sponsible by reason of the wonderful work of the 
famous *75's. 

Principally this matter must be judged from the 
point of view of the gunner on the ground, and the 
difficulties and disadvantages that he must contend 
with. In all previous wars it was the custom with 
guns with a range of above three miles, the target 
of which was not visible from the firing position, to 
send an observer, or observers, up to some point of 
vantage, preferably a church tower, or the roof of a 
tall building as near the object to be fired upon as 

108 



DIRECTION OF ARTILLERY FIRE 109 

safety would permit. This task of observation was 
often both dangerous and difficult, and, when no 
suitable observation post could be discovered, 
impossible. Thus the firing of the guns became 
purely a matter of mathematics and judgment ; the 
gunner being unable to discern whether the shells 
fired were near or wide of the mark, a thoroughly 
unsatisfactory arrangement to all concerned. It 
was then suggested that aeroplanes should be 
utilized for the purposes of observation. This has 
since become the main duty of aircraft along the 
battle front, and the direction of artillery has been a 
veritable triumph for the " Fourth Arm/' employ- 
ing daily countless pilots and machines. 

For the direction of artillery the observer is 
generally responsible. Following the shell bursts 
on the map, he wirelesses their positions back to the 
gun-post and corrects the range. Together with the 
direction may be classed the observation of artillery. 
While out directing our own fire, an airman might 
very possibly spot one or a group of enemy heavy 
guns. Then it is a simple matter for him, knowing 
his own altitude, to gauge, by geometrical bearings, 
their position, and control the range of fire upon 
them. 

On the Western Front the victory or defeat, the 
good or bad day fluctuates with the command of the 
air. This passes from one side to the other with a 
pendulum-like regularity ; now the enemy, now our- 
selves ; then the enemy, then ourselves. Immediately 
the enemy has lost the command his aircraft are 
conspicuous by their absence. Regaining that 
command they come swarming overhead in droves. 
Then is an anxious time for the men in the trenches. 
If a Hun aeroplane appears overhead — that is to say, 
over an important or vulnerable spot — it is followed 
almost immediately by a violent artillery bom- 



iio AIRFARE 

bardment. The advent of enemy aircraft necessi- 
tates the immediate taking of cover. Of course, 
many of the more important positions are hidden or 
distorted out of their original appearance ; and at 
this art again the enemy excels. His subterfuges 
are as numerous as they are ingenious. And not 
alone hidden positions, but false markings and 
dummy guns, also traps of anti-aircraft guns for 
the unwary airman. For this purpose a dummy 
battery of heavy guns or an ammunition dump is 
rigged up. Down comes the airman, thinking he has 
made a coup, to find himself, often too late, within 
a barrage fire of A.A. guns. 

This class of work is confined for the most part to 
daylight . Occasionally a night stunt does take place, 
but the matter of observation and of communication 
is rendered doubly difficult. The only practicable 
way of communicating is by means of a Very's 
pistol. Several of the later craft have small search- 
lights aboard; which brings us to the matter of 
aerial signalling. 

Of these there are two methods. The one we may 
say is audible, the other visible. Under these two 
categories come flags, which can only be read from a 
very short distance, telephones in captive balloons, 
smoke-bombs which leave a trail of black or white 
smoke, according to climatic conditions and, with 
the enemy, a handful of tinsel, which in falling 
glitters in the sunlight. The smoke signal is the 
most reliable. 

Again, the enemy have a method of signalling 
with a powerful horn similar to the one in use on a 
motor-car, worked upon the siren principle. And 
last, and most important, there is the wireless 
instrument. 

A wireless transmitting apparatus with a Morse 
sending key attached is fitted in each machine. An 



DIRECTION OF ARTILLERY FIRE ill 

observer is shipped, and away goes the pilot to 
" sit " over the target. This sitting business is a 
matter of first attaining a great altitude, then 
gradually spiralling down with wide circles over the 
object or area to be shelled. Meanwhile the battery 
opens fire, and the observer, after each shell has 
burst, signals to the wireless receiving station by 
the gun : Hit, over, under, left or right as the case 
may be. 

The results thus obtained are little short of 
marvellous, both in regard to the prevention of the 
wastage of shells and the development of greater 
accuracy in firing. On a good clear morning it is 
no uncommon sight to see as many as ten aeroplanes 
all hovering over various points on the Front, 
target registering, and it speaks volumes for the 
efficiency of the wireless operators and erectors 
that, although so many machines would be in the air 
at the same time, they never jammed each other's 
signals. 

The extreme advantage of this method of com- 
munication may well be judged from a cutting of a 
recent number of the Wireless World. Said that 
excellent journal : — 

" One very excellent way of learning what one 
owes to a certain instrument is to do without it for 
a while. We get a good insight into the utility of 
aeroplane wireless from an account recently sent 
home by a newspaper correspondent. It is con- 
cerned with the adventures of a subaltern in the 
Flying Corps who was serving in Mesopotamia at a 
time when he was ' monarch of all he surveyed ' 
(i.e. when his was the only plane available). He was 
scouting on a machine unfitted with radio apparatus, 
and, as soon as he went up, noticed how at a certain 
height he ceased to be troubled by the shimmering 
mirage which in hot climates confuses the human 



H2 AIRFARE 

eye and judgment of distance so long as the ob- 
server is located on the earth level. From his 
vantage point in the sky everything was ' clear as 
a bell/ 

fc^" Yonder go our cavalry and the enemy's, nearing 
each other in the haze totally unawares ! . . . What's 
- — — -'s brigade wheeling round for now ? A mile 
further advance would turn the enemy's flank. . . . 
The Turks are leaving their front trenches ; they're 
fully 3000 strong : oh, if only I could get our 
gunners to shell them from across the river. . . . 
Now's the time ; if only the cavalry would go for 
them ! . . . What a chance they've missed ! 

" Matters have been amended now, and the British 
air ascendancy in Mesopotamia is at present as 
complete as it is in France. The machines are of the 
latest pattern, and aeroplane wireless keeps the 
pilots and observers in the sky in close touch with 
the artillery commanders and army leaders beneath 
them. The erection of hangars has reduced the 
wastage of aircraft by giving protection against the 
alternate sun-baking and rain-drenching to which 
the machines were subjected in the earlier stages of 
the campaign. 

"The scraps of the flying man's remarks, from 
which we have just quoted, speak eloquently of 
missed opportunities which would not have been let 
slip had wireless been available." 

By the gun position a special operator is always 
waiting at the receiving station, also an officer to 
take the range. 

The receiving station ? 

Imagine, if you can, a peaceful group of farm- 
houses and outbuildings ; on either side are the 
grazing meadows and, perhaps, a duck-pond or so. 
Slovenly, unkempt-looking women are lounging in 
the doorways of the cottages, stolidly regarding the 



DIRECTION OF ARTILLERY FIRE 113 

movements of the artillerymen gathered round that 
black, ugly-looking barrel that rears itself from 
amidst a pile of screening tree-branches and foliage 
in a near-by meadow. An aeroplane passes swiftly 
overhead. Immediately half a hundred pairs of 
eyes are focussed thereon. A hasty consultation, 
then the gun is laid, the range gauged, and the wire- 
less operator ordered to stand by ! He assembles 
his set among the bales of straw in a barn, claps on 
the head-receivers — and waits. 

The signal is not long in coming. Birr — birr — 
birr ; Siz — siz — siz go the 'phones over his ears. 
He informs the officer by the gun that the attendant 
aircraft is ready and waiting. Boom ! goes the gun. 
One of the gunners hurries across to the wireless man. 
Birr — birr — birr go the 'phones again. " Last shot 
over," he translates. The gun fires again and again. 
This is a matter of extreme importance ; the gun 
must be fired as rapidly as possible in order to enable 
the airman to give the correct range. 

So they go on. Now the wireless signal is over the 
target. Now short of the target ; now to the left, 
now to the right — and at last correct. The gunners 
have got the range, and proceed forthwith to pound 
shells into the unsuspecting Boches for all they're 
worth. 

Despite this extreme usefulness of wireless in air- 
craft, it has at present one serious disadvantage. 
The earth for the set has to be obtained from the 
metal of the engine, and does not permit of too large 
a radius. Thus, though it is a comparatively simple 
matter to send signals over a distance of twenty 
miles from the aeroplane, it is usually impossible to 
receive signals over distances of over two miles. 
Such signals as are employed can be picked up with 
equal facility by friend and foe alike. That is to say, 
if the receiving instrument is " tuned up " to the 



H4 AIRFARE 

same range. Again, with so many different instru- 
ments working, at one and the same time, in a small 
area, it is very possible that " jamming " will 
occur. 

The noise of the constantly running engine is 
another difficulty to be contended with. This 
renders it exceedingly difficult to hear the signals in 
the telephones. 

The aerial of the set is stowed away upon a large 
round wheel at the side of the fuselage, from which 
it is paid out in similar fashion to an anchor. But 
it has to be all rewound within 200 feet of the 
ground, as with the then tilted altitude of the craft 
there is a constant danger of its fouling the pro- 
peller. 

The weight of the entire set is limited to 100 lbs. 
Necessarily this entails very little power and an 
extremely limited radius ; per contra a great radius 
requires considerable power, and considerable power 
requires a large and weighty wireless set, which 
would be impossible in an aeroplane. 

The wireless receiving stations are situated either 
on large and powerful motor-lorries, with a mast 
for the aerial, or in dips and hollows in the 
ground, so that they may be sheltered from the 
enemy. 

Wireless is most important in Zeppelins. But the 
instrument must be well protected, owing to the 
danger of the spark igniting the gas. The entire 
instrument is more satisfactory, as it is possible to 
obtain a good earth from the huge metal framework 
of the craft. But this framework, which is, for 
the most part, constructed of aluminium, presents 
another danger, as it is a great collector of electricity. 
The value of wireless work with these lighter-than- 
air craft is dealt with to some extent in another 
chapter. 



DIRECTION OF ARTILLERY FIRE 115 

Finally, aviation has done a lot to help forward 
and develop wireless experimental work, in that it 
has introduced it into an entirely novel and hither- 
to undeveloped sphere. 



CHAPTER XII 
KITE -BALLOONS AND PARACHUTES 

THE observation balloon — to-day an ungainly 
creature that sits always tailwise in mid-air — 
is not a product of this war. Its history dates back 
to the late eighteenth century. In 1794 Coulette 
presented the first war balloon to the French 
Government, and it was employed against the 
Austrians, who considered it an insidious form of 
attack, and declared that all balloonists who fell 
into their hands would be treated as spies forth- 
with. 

Aircraft played a more than important part in 
the Franco- Prussian war of 1870-1. Jansen, the 
celebrated astronomer, who was interned in Paris, 
was desirous of reaching Algiers by December 22 
to witness a phenomenal eclipse of the sun. The 
English offered to procure for him a safety permit 
through the German lines, but this he declined, and 
elected to effect his escape by balloon. He accom- 
plished this feat on December 2, landing the next 
day some sixty-five miles south-west of the capital. 

Subsequently numerous balloon sorties through 
the air greatly annoyed the German military 
commanders, and orders were given forthwith to 
Krupp to construct the first " Archibald " gun. 
This weapon was mounted on a specially con- 
structed gun-carriage, and was capable of being 
tilted to almost any angle ; but no instance is on 
record of a target being registered. 

116 



KITE-BALLOONS AND PARACHUTES 117 

The original captive balloons were spherical in 
shape. The present-day craft, the kite-balloon, is 
more useful than ornamental. It was proposed by a 
Scotsman, Archibald Douglas, as far back as 1845, 
but two Germans, Colonel von Parseval and Dr. 
Kriegsfeld, first constructed one of these strange 
craft in Augsburg. The captive spherical was soon 
discovered to be impracticable for w T ar purposes. 
In any wind of over twenty miles an hour it rolled 
about to such a degree as to make accurate observa- 
tion impossible. Thus we have the present peculiar 
shape. 

The two main portions of the craft are the 
envelope and the car. The former is the balloon 
portion which is filled with gas and provides the 
necessary lifting power. The latter, strung below 
the envelope by means of the rigging, is a large 
basket capable of housing a crew of two, with maps 
and other necessary paraphernalia. The main idea 
of the craft is that it sets itself diagonally like a kite 
to the direction of the breeze. It is serviceable in a 
wind of up to a velocity of forty miles an hour. 

The only remaining portion of the craft is the 
steering-bag, a strange excrescence under the 
hinder lower parts. The function of this bag is to 
keep the balloon head on to the wind. The air 
enters the steering-bag and passes by means of 
another valve into the air-bag whenever the pressure 
in the latter falls below normal. Thus the air-bag 
is constantly kept tight, and so solidifies the whole 
balloon. 

To hold it in captivity the balloon is connected by 
a light and durable steel cable to a steam winch on 
the ground below. This cable was originally 
attached to only one point of the rigging. With the 
later kite balloons, however, it was found more 
expedient to connect it at two different points, thus 



n8 AIRFARE 

always holding the craft at an angle of between 
thirty and forty degrees to the horizontal. 

Behind and below the main body there hangs a 
long ungainly tail of six small parachutes. The 
purpose of this tail is to anchor the craft against 
any sudden gust of wind, which would be extremely 
dangerous to the observers in the basket and liable 
to tilt them out. 

The military function of the balloon is observa- 
tion. In the car are two observers. Before them 
are two specially prepared, squared maps of the 
district under observation. The car is connected 
to the winch by telephone, which passes down 
through insulated wires in the strands of the cable. 
From the winch, again, connection is made across 
country by the usual telephone wires to the group 
of heavy guns for which the balloon is spotting. 
Thus the gunner, by his battery, will telephone to 
the spotter above, and often four or five miles away, 
when he is ready to start. The observer gives the 
required signal. The gun is fired. The smoke 
clears away ; through his glasses the observer has 
noticed the position of the burst. He gets through 
to the gun again. " Your last shot was over/' he 
says, or under, or so much to the left, or so much to 
the right, as the case may be. The gunner remedies 
his error and fires. Again he inquires of the 
observer. Then possibly the reply may come. 
7 Dead on that time. Go ahead/' 

At sea, observation balloons are, if anything, more 
useful. When not in use they are stowed away in 
the hold of the parent ship. Then they are let up in 
precisely the same manner as their brethren ashore. 
In the Dardanelles they were in commission con- 
tinuously : one " sausage " spotting for the Queen 
Elizabeth when she was firing from one side of the 
peninsula to the other. 



KITE-BALLOONS AND PARACHUTES 119 

The K.B., however, is the most harmless and 
easily attacked of aircraft. The gas in the envelope 
prevents the employment of arms of any descrip- 
tion. When the enemy aeroplane flies up overhead 
with intent to bomb, there are two courses open 
to the crew. Either to have the craft rewound 
on to the winch on the ground ; the other, to 
take to the parachutes. A parachute drop is 
generally the last resource. When all other means 
have failed, the pilot, in desperation, takes to those 
few closely-folded feet of silk and cord. It is 
by no means a pleasant experience ! One feels that 
the plane or, as the case is, the kite-balloon one is 
about to leave is endowed with all the safety of 
terra-firma when compared with the bottomless void 
into which one plunges down — down to where ? 
Will the parachute open, or has the cording got 
entangled, or the body jammed ? Those few seconds 
are a lifetime. With the assurance that it would 
open, a parachute drop would be no more terri- 
fying than an ordinary flight through the air. 
With nothing below and very little above, a pilot 
could well appreciate the situation if the sides and 
bottom of the body of his machine had been cut 
away, likewise the cowl, the engine, the under- 
carriage, and the wings, and nothing but his seat 
remained. 

However, with all its terrors the war has neces- 
sitated the revival of the parachute. And, from the 
occasional Press accounts that are allowed to filter 
through, it is apparently doing excellent service on 
the other side. But the parachute is no modern 
invention. In the history of its development are 
numbered such prominent pioneers as Leonardo da 
Vinci, Fauste, also Joseph Montgolfier : prior to his 
balloon experiments Lenormand made a descent 
from a tree as long since as 1783, but confined his 



120 AIRFARE 

further experiments to animals. Blanchard was 
the first to take the matter up as a profession, and 
made a very considerable sum of money thereby. 
And Garnerin, on October 22, 1797, made a drop of 
3000 feet from a balloon. Since those days the 
parachute drop has usually featured as the piece de 
resistance of the country fair or the public exhi- 
bition. 

f When leaving the craft the aviator drops like a 
stone a distance of some sixty or eighty feet before 
the parachute opens. And, curious to relate, the 
greater his weight, the sooner the parachute unfolds. 
Then its course follows the fashion of the bend in 
the letter L. 

It is the rush of the upward currents of air that is 
responsible for the action, and the strength thereof, 
as may be judged, is tremendous. The speed of the 
drop, on a general estimation, is four feet nine inches 
per second. ^ Thus Robertson took thirty-five 
minutes to drop 10,000 feet. But, on the other hand, 
Frau Poitevin, a German parachutist, made a drop 
of only 6000 feet in over forty-five minutes. This 
depends, to a very great extent, on the weather con- 
ditions prevailing. 

The feelings experienced are varied. Some say 
there is a sort of numbness : a blank in the mind 
from the second that the parachute leaves the craft 
until the time when it opens : others, that after it is 
all over nothing but a horrible nightmare remains ; 
and yet others, the feelings experienced are similar 
to those in a high dive. 

Talking to one of the best known of our pilots, 
and one who has made many drops, he explained 
that the feeling was composed half of horror, half 
of joy : horror at the entirely novel sensation of the 
dead drop, joy to think of what one had accom- 
plished. But, he confessed, he never made a drop 



KITE-BALLOONS AND PARACHUTES 121 

from any sense of pleasure. And whether one fears 
it or no depends largely on the mood one is experi- 
encing at the time as well as on the temperamental 
fitness on the whole of the one making the experi- 
ment. 

The highest drop recorded in this country was one 
of 10,500 feet made by Wing-Commander Maitland 
over London : the lowest, and incidentally the 
world's record, one of 350 feet made by Sir Bryan 
Leighton. 

There is a considerable difference in dropping out 
of a balloon and an aeroplane. With the former it is 
a comparatively simple matter of stepping over the 
side. With the latter, however, one has perforce 
to scramble out of one's seat in the body, and 
gingerly, very gingerly, climb out on to the wing, 
there to be blown off by the backward current of 
air. An airship, having a moderately steady 
motion, and possessing the property of being able 
to hover in mid-air, renders parachuting the 
simplest of matters. 

Of the three forms of craft, drops have rarely 
been made from aeroplanes, a few only from air- 
ships, but quite a number from kite-balloons. As 
a matter of fact, with the latter craft it is almost 
an everyday occurrence on the other side. A good 
example occurred only a few days ago. 

Imagine, if you can, a gaunt, forbidding-looking 
shape, rising from the shelter of a dense wood some 
five miles behind the British lines. The day is clear 
and sunny. The craft is up directing artillery fire. 
After some two hours' observation two tiny, dark 
shapes are observed nearing overhead. Instantly 
all is consternation. An attempt is made to wind 
in the kite-balloon. Too late, the enemy planes are 
now well overhead. They dive steeply, and circle 
round the craft, dropping bombs, luckily without 



122 AIRFARE 

registering a hit, at least not on the kite-balloon. 
The two observers leap out in their parachutes, two 
tiny black specks that sink like stones to the earth, 
gradually growing larger as the parachutes open, 
They land safely. And, at an opportune moment, 
one of our fighting planes arrives upon the scene, and 
routs the enemy within only a hundred yards of his 
target. 

But to return to the matter of K.B.'s. I do 
not think that I am overstating my case by saying 
that our kite-balloon service is the most efficient 
and best organized of any of the belligerent nations. 
For this we have to thank the untiring efforts of 
Squadron Commander Delacombe, of the R.N.A.S., 
and, later, Lieut. -Colonel Bovill, R.F.C. 

During the last few months, another and more 
perfect captive balloon has come into use. It was 
invented by Captain Cacquou, of the French Army. 
The principal characteristics of the craft are its 
triple-bag appendage and the increased stability 
that permits the craft to be flown even in a full gale 
of wind. 



CHAPTER XIII 
AIRSHIPS 

A COMPARISON between the histories of the 
lighter-than-air and the heavier-than-air air- 
craft serves to show us, firstly, that the former is by 
far the older craft ; and secondly, that the principles 
and construction of the two species are not altogether 
dissimilar. The natural gifts possessed by the 
lighter-than-air type would obviously be sooner 
apparent than the scientifically developed pro- 
perties of the other craft. And as long since as 1852 
a dirigible made a really successful trip in France. 
This airship was constructed by Henri Gliffard, and 
made several flights at an average speed of six miles 
per hour. 

Previous to this date, however, experiments had 
been carried out by the brothers Robert, two 
Frenchmen, in 1784, in an oblong-shaped craft, 
52 feet long and 32 feet in diameter, buoyed up by 
pure oxygen, A flight of over a kilometre was 
accomplished in this craft. 

The Due de Chartres made a flight in another of 
the Roberts' craft. And on this occasion the 
dirigible encountered a strong cross-current that 
tore the airbag from the envelope covering the 
neck and preventing the necessary escape of the 
hydrogen. Just in time the Duke averted the danger 
by plunging his sword into and rending asunder the 
envelope. 

123 



124 AIRFARE 

The next recorded flight was that made by Dupuy 
de Lome. And ten years later Tissandier made a 
flight at an average speed of 10 miles an hour. 

In 1872 Hanlein, a German, constructed an airship 
propelled by a 6 h. p. Lenoir gas-engine that touched 
a speed of 10 miles. And in 1879 Baumgarten and 
Wolfert constructed an airship which, unfortunately, 
was burnt in its first attempt at flight. 

But it was not until 1884 that the dirigible devel- 
oped true airworthiness. In that year Captain 
Renard flew round Paris at a speed of 14! miles an 
hour. 

Schwartz, an Austrian engineer, in 1897 built the 
first rigid airship fitted with a petrol motor. And 
after this came the period of Santos Dumont, the 
best known of aeronautical pioneers, and of Count 
Zeppelin. 

These earlier types of dirigibles were, in reality, 
balloons fitted with mechanical propulsion. Several 
of the foremost types were driven by hand pro- 
pulsion, by means of oars. The Zeppelin, or the 
super-Zeppelin of to-day, and the old-fashioned 
spherical balloon of the past consisted alike of two 
similar main portions, the envelope and the car. 
The envelope was always spherical in shape, and was 
inflated with hydrogen gas, which is the lightest gas 
known, being only 7 per cent as heavy as air, of 
which 1000 cubic feet weighs 50 lb. Thus 1000 cubic 
feet of hydrogen will give a lift of 74 lb., or practi- 
cally, 35,000 cubic feet will lift one ton. It must not 
be forgotten, however, that that " lift " must include 
the weight of the balloon and gear. 

Thus, if a 35,000 cubic feet hydrogen balloon 
weighs half a ton, it will only lift another half a ton 
besides its own weight. A modern Zeppelin has a 
" lift " varying from 20 to 28 tons. 

Once in the air, there are many factors that must 



AIRSHIPS 125 

be taken into consideration. Chief among them are 
the natures and properties of the gas, and for that 
matter of all gases. The effect of heat upon gas is to 
make it expand, which expansion causes the balloon 
or airship to rise. Per contra, cold causes the gas to 
contract, and incidentally causes the craft to 
descend. It will be seen, therefore, that on a fine 
sunny day the craft will rise with greater ease than 
when the elements are dull and cold. Air pressure 
is another factor which must be considered, and 
this is greatest at sea-level. The greater the altitude 
the less the pressure becomes, and the less pressure 
on the outside surface of the envelope the easier it 
is for the gas to expand ; but this is compensated 
for by the fact that the atmosphere is considerably 
cooler at a high altitude. Practically these are the 
only factors governing the science of aerostatics, 
and we may state briefly that to make a balloon or 
airship rise it is necessary to allow the gas to expand. 
This feat is accomplished by throwing ballast over- 
board in the form of sand ; and to make it descend, 
gas must be dispensed with by allowing it to escape, 
thus reducing the " lifting " forces. 

Airships, of which Zeppelins are the largest and 
most perfect type, are nothing more than huge 
balloons, driven in a forward direction by mechan- 
ical propulsion. The shape differs materially, being 
rather like that of a long cigar, but this is by reason 
of offering less head resistance. Altogether there 
are three types of airships : the " non-rigid," in 
which the two portions, the car and the envelope, 
are entirely separate portions, being held together 
by means of rigging — most British airships are of 
this class ; " semi-rigid/' in which the car is partly 
attached to the envelope, a type greatly favoured 
by the French and the Italians; and the "rigid air- 
ship/' of which both car and envelope are in the 



126 AIRFARE 

same framework. The Zeppelin is of the latter 
class. 

Now, we discover that the airship is composed of a 
long wasp-like body, known as the envelope, and con- 
taining the hydrogen gas, by which it obtains its 
lifting forces, and a car or cars. 

Lighter- than- air craft were none too popular in 
this country in former years ; but now at last we 
are beginning to realize their great advantage, and 
are constructing airships, both large and small, as 
fast as we are able. Concerning which construction 
it premises some extremely pleasant surprises for 
the public in the near future. 

As long since as 1900, however, a Dr. Barton con- 
structed an airship with which he made a successful 
flight over London. Mr. Willows, of Cardiff, experi- 
mented up to 1904, and produced the first British 
craft that was thoroughly airworthy. It was 74 feet 
in length, 18 feet in diameter, and was fitted with a 
7 h.p. Peugot motor. Of the semi-rigid type, it had 
a single seat and a capacity of 22,000 cubic feet of 
gas. From Cardiff a flight was made to London, 
over a distance of 140 miles. Every few miles the 
pilot, Mr. Willows in person, came down near the 
ground and inquired his whereabouts by means of a 
large and powerful megaphone. 

It is needless to add that this method of pro- 
cedure would hardly commend itself to-day, with 
the apparent hostility of the German peoples. 

He accomplished the journey in under ten hours. 
In November, 1910, he made another flight from 
Wormwood Scrubs to Douai, in France. The air- 
ship passed over the French coast at an altitude of 
5500 feet, but in landing in the dark was severely 
injured. 

The Government Balloon Factory at Farn- 
borough was next in the field, in 1907, with a crude 



AIRSHIPS 127 

form of craft, constructed with the aid and under 
the personal supervision of " Colonel " Cody. It was 
sausage-shaped and named the "Nulli Secundus." 

Unhappily it wasn't ! And the next craft pro- 
duced had an envelope of 42 feet diameter. It was 
fitted with a 100 h.p. engine, and registered a speed 
of 40 miles per hour. It was named the " Nulli 
Secundus II." It justified the appellation ! 

After this craft came the " Baby " in 1910, and 
the " Beta " in June, 1910. The latter was fitted 
with a 30 h.p. Gnome engine, made several success- 
ful flights over London, and took part in the autumn 
manoeuvres of that year. 

In September of the same year the Morning Post, 
as the result of a public subscription, presented the 
" Lebaudy " airship to the nation. This vessel was 
in length 337 feet, fitted with two 135 h.p. engines, 
and flew from Moisson to Aldershot, a distance of 
197 miles, in 5 hours and 28 minutes, or at an average 
speed of 36 m.p.h. 

Vickers turned out their first airship on the 24th 
of the same month, the " Mayfly." She was 510 
feet long, 48 feet in diameter, and fitted with two 
200 h.p. Wolseley engines. Immediately after 
leaving her shed for the first trip a gale of wind 
sprang up and she was totally destroyed. 

After the " Mayfly " were the " Gamma," 
11 Delta," and " Eta," neither of which achieved any 
very great success. 

At the beginning of 1914 we possessed only two 
really reliable airships. They were a Parseval, 
bought from the German Government, and an 
" Astra Torres," purchased in France. However, 
these craft rendered yeoman service in scouring the 
seas for enemy submarines ; thus aiding materially 
the convoying of the British Expeditionary Force 
to France. 



128 AIRFARE 

The Naval Authorities, some time before the war 
commenced, took over all the lighter-than-air, and 
are to-day responsible for these craft, which consist 
for the most part of " Baby's " or " Blimps/' or 
" S.S.'s " and " C.P.'s." 



France 

Our neighbours across the Channel have made con- 
siderably more progress with lighter-than-air vessels 
than we have ourselves. This is not at all to be 
wondered at ! The psychology of the two peoples 
is as far apart as the two poles. Where we, in this 
country, regarded the advent of aircraft in a stolid, 
unemotional manner, coldly reasoning that if a few 
hardy adventurers were willing to risk their necks 
beneath the all-enveloping cloak of sport, that was 
entirely their affair, but as a practical enterprise it 
was absurd, and such a thing " wasn't done " ; the 
French, with all the verve and impetuousness of the 
Latin races, hailed the event as one of the most 
important and far-reaching events in history, and 
forthwith devoted the best brains and ample finance 
to experiment with and develop the airship. 

As the pioneer ballooning country of the world, 
they held a very great advantage from the start. 
For, as has been already pointed out in this chapter, 
the balloon and the airship are almost kindred craft. 

The Lebaudy Brothers were the pioneers. In 
1899 they constructed the " Jamie," a vessel 183 
feet long, 30 feet in diameter, and of 80,000 cubic 
feet capacity. The engine was a 40 h.p. Daimler, 
and gave a speed of 26 m.p.h. In 1902 she made 
29 flights and was successful upon 28 of these 
occasions in returning to her starting-point. In 
November of that year she hit a tree when landing 
and became a total wreck, 



AIRSHIPS 129 

In 1904 the Lebaudys produced their next craft, 
the " Lebaudy." This vessel was possessed of a 
triple airbag or ballonet, was 190 feet long, and had 
a capacity of 94,000 cubic feet. She was a most 
successful ship, and after 76 flights had been made 
their " rights " were acquired by the French Govern- 
ment, who therewith commenced to construct 
Lebaudys — they were of the semi-rigid type, with 
a spar running along the entire length of the envelope, 
thus evenly distributing the weight — at Moisson. 

In 1906 there followed, by the same firm, the 
11 Patrie," and in 1909 the " Republique." They 
were larger and improved types of the " Lebaudy " 
ship, with an average speed of 28 m.p.h., a radius of 
280 miles, and accommodation for a crew of nine. 
In 1907, while the " Patrie " was anchored outside 
Verdun, she was torn from her moorings in a violent 
gale, and trailed off over Northern France and the 
British Isles, and finally disappeared in the direction 
of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The " Republique," which possessed an engine of 
some 80 h.p., made successful flights over a period 
extending from July, 1908, to September, 1909. 
Then a propeller breaking in mid-air, a blade thereof 
flew upwards, tore a large gash in the envelope and 
killed 2 officers and 2 N.C.O.'s. Similar airships of 
the same type were the " Russie " and " La 
Liberte." 

The first craft of the " Clement-Bayard " type was 
the " Ville de Paris/' In length it was 200 feet, 
fitted with a 70 h.p. motor, giving a speed of 25 
m.p.h. and having a capacity of 120,487 feet. In 
1909 came the " Clement-Bayard/' a larger ship 
but built on similar lines. Her engine was 100 h.p. 
and gave a speed of 30 m.p.h. On August 23rd, 
1909, the " Clement-Bayard " flew for two hours 
at an altitude of 5000 feet, but finished her 



130 AIRFARE 


career by depositing herself 
ships of this class were : — 


in the Seine. Oth 


The " Ville de Bordeaux " . 
The " Ville de Nancy " 
The " Colonel Renard " . 
The " Espana " 
The " Clement Bayard II " 
The " Trans-Aerienne I " . 
The " Flandre " 


3200 cubic metres. 

3200 „ 

4000 „ ,, 

4000 ,, 

6500 „ 

6500 „ 

6500 



Several of these latter craft were " Astra-Torres," 
designed by a Spanish engineer, Sen or Torres. 



Italy 

It has been said by many aeronautical experts 
that the Italian semi-rigids are the finest in the 
world. This may or may not be. We are not open 
to discuss such matters in these few pages, further 
than to say the Italian Government has always 
specialized in this type of airship. 

The first, the Pi— P, " Piccolo," small size- 
was constructed in 1908. The Pi was 200 feet 
long, of 40 feet diameter, had a motor of 100 h.p., 
and possessed a speed of 35 m.p.h. She was not 
very successful in her trials, and in 1912 the 
Government purchased a " Parseval " from 
Germany. 

The next home-constructed product was the 
M Class — M, medium size — with engines of 500 h.p. 
and a speed of 48 m.p.h. She was 250 feet long and 
55 feet in diameter ; the largest semi-rigid ever 
constructed. 

The next class, but of the same type, was the 
Forlanni, and the " Citta di Ferrara " was the first 
ship of the class. She had a capacity of 424,000 feet, 



AIRSHIPS 131 

a length of 233 feet, a diameter of 59 feet, and three 
85-100 Isotta-Fraschini engines. 

The Italian airships have accomplished many 
remarkably useful flights during the war. 



Germany 

And by no means least, but last, there is the 
German Empire. And here again psychology plays 
no unimportant part. The Teuton is notoriously 
methodical, invariably a plodder. His inventions 
are never the outcome of a flash of genius, but 
generally an idea from some other source, worked 
and improved upon gradually, painstakingly, until 
the object of consideration assumes unrecognisable 
proportions. Germany, then, took a considerably 
greater time to construct her aircraft, but when 
finally completed they were perfect in every degree. 
And she did not, as most people imagine, confine 
her attentions solely to the Zeppelin. 

Among her other accomplishments was the 
" Parseval," a type of " semi-rigid " airship, the 
principal feature of which was the arrangement by 
which the suspension cables allowed the hull to be 
canted in relation to the angle of the car, in order 
to enable her to climb at a much increased speed. 
The first " Parseval " was produced in 1906, but was 
not a very great success. The second was 190 feet 
l° n g> 35i feet in diameter, 113,000 cubic feet 
capacity, possessed of two 120 h.p. engines, and 
fitted with the same system of suspension as number 
one. She made many voyages, with sometimes as 
many as twelve passengers aboard. 

Another type was the wooden " Schutte-Lanz." 
An attempt by a firm at Mannheim in 1912 to 
produce a rigid airship constructed of wood braced 



132 AIRFARE 

with wire. It was cigar-like in shape, and approxi- 
mately the same size as a Zeppelin. However, the 
wooden structure rendered her considerably heavier 
than the latter craft. And no very successful flights 
were then made, though it is thought that several 
of the Schutte-Lanz craft have participated with the 
Zeppelins in raids on this country. 



The Zeppelin 

The Zeppelin is due to one man, and one man 
alone. The grey-haired, bent old Count, formerly 
an officer in the German Army, who lived to find 
himself, a once much-despised, impoverished 
inventor, acclaimed the saviour of his country, 
loaded with honours and riches, the personal friend 
of the most autocratic of autocracies, and a notori- 
ous figure in the history of the world. His iron will 
and determination triumphed over poverty, adverse 
circumstance, and disbelief alike, until finally he 
forced the very people, who had formerly regarded 
his invention as a waste of time and of money, to 
clamour in a wailing hell-chorus for that same 
craft. 

Zeppelin commenced his experiments at 
Friedrichshaven, on the shores of Lake Constance, 
in 1900. The first ship was 400,000 cubic feet in 
capacity, possessed two 16 h.p. motors, weighed 
9 tons, and carried 5 men. It made only one flight, 
but during the course of that, remained in the air for 
one and a quarter hours, and touched an altitude 
of 1000 feet. 

Encouraged by this success, the old man con- 
structed, with the aid of influential friends, in 1906, 
a second craft. This ship was more powerful than 
her predecessor, and possessed two 85 h.p. Daimler 



AIRSHIPS 133 

engines. A trial flight was made in November of that 
year, but the craft was wrecked shortly afterwards 
in a violent gale of wind. 

Undeterred by these added misfortunes he 
persevered, constructing fresh ships as year suc- 
ceeded year. Until eventually he received royal 
patronage and the aid of the State ; and at the 
outbreak of hostilities was able to place at the 
disposal of the authorities some thirty airworthy 
ships. 

Cuxhaven had already been selected as the 
headquarters of the German Air Fleet, with air 
harbours at Heligoland, Tondern, Emden, Wilhelms- 
haven, Hamburg, Kiel, Wismar, Rostock, and 
Konigsberg. These stations had been stipulated 
for in the four years' building programme of the 
Reichstag of October 13th, 1913. This programme 
provided for 10 rigid airships, for several first and 
second class air harbours, the majority fitted with 
revolving sheds, and for maintenance of material ; 
the total to be completed by January 1st, 1918. 

Of the Zeppelins there were, or rather are, six 
several types. The which, for purposes of con- 
venience, we will refer to by numbers, from 1 to 
6. The first type was the Super-Zeppelin class, 
that contained products both of the Zeppelin and 
the Schutte-Lanz ships. 

It was constructed at the Zeppelin works, 
Friedrichshaven, and Mannheim :— 



Length 
Capacity 
Useful lift . 
Engines 

Maximum speed 
Endurance . 



Maximum altitude 16,500 feet. 
Complement . 22. 

Armament . ♦ 6 maxim guns. 



630 feet. 

1,906,200 cubic feet. 

19 tons. 

Six 250 h.p. 6-cylinder Maybach. 

65 m.p.h. 

35 hours. 



134 



AIRFARE 



Class 2 are constructed at Friedrichshaven 
Rheinau : — 



and 



Length 
Capacity 
Useful lift . 
Engines 

Maximum speed 
Endurance . 
Complement 
Maximum altitude 
Armament . 



775 feet. 

2,471,000 cubic feet. 

28 tons. 

Seven 250 h.p. Maybach. 

68 miles. 

40 hours. 

22. 

16,500 feet. 

6 maxim guns, 4 tons explosives. 



Class 3 
Potsdam :- 



are constructed at Friedrichshaven and 



Length . 
Capacity 
Useful lift . 
Engines 

Maximum speed 
Endurance 
Complement . 
Maximum altitude 
Armament 



528 feet. 

1,059,000 cubic feet. 
10 tons. 

Five 210 h.p. 6-cylinder May- 
bach. 
53 m.p.h. 
26 hours. 
16. 

11,550 feet. 
4 maxims, 2 tons bombs. 



Class 4 are constructed at Friedrichshaven and 
Rheinau : — 



Length . 
Capacity 
Useful lift . 
Engines 

Maximum speed 
Endurance 
Maximum altitude 
Complement . 
Armament 



560 feet. 

1,235,000 cubic feet. 

13 tons. 

6 210 h.p. 6-cylinder Maybach. 

59 m.p.h. 

30 hours. 

13,200 feet. 

18. 

6 maxims, 2\ tons of bombs. 



Class 5 are constructed at Schutte-Lanz factory 
at Rheinau : — 



Length . 
Capacity 



544 feet. 

i»059>ooo cubic feet. 



Useful lift . 
Engines 

Maximum speed 
Endurance 
Maximum altitude 
Complement . 
Armament 



AIRSHIPS 135 

14 tons. 

4 240 h.p. Mercedes. 
53 m.p.h. 
26 hours. 
8,250 feet. 
16. 

5 maxims, i| tons of bombs. 



And lastly, class 6, the latest of all, are con- 
structed at the Zeppelin works at Friedrichs- 
haven : — 



Length . 
Capacity 
Useful lift . 
Engines 

Maximum speed 
Endurance 
Maximum altitude 
Complement . 
Armament 



521 feet. 

953*°o° cubic feet. 
8 tons. 

4 210 h.p. 6-cy Under May- 
bach. 
50 m.p.h. 
26 hours. 
8,250 feet. 
16. 
4 maxims, 1 \ tons of bombs. 



CHAPTER XIV 
FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 

THE novelty of Zeppelin fighting is the main 
reason for the bitter criticism levelled thereat. 
It is new, strange, and to a certain degree unex- 
pected. The British public (those that have never 
been on the other side) have alternately howled, 
gasped, cheered, and reviled thereat. Because 
such a thing had never occurred before, because 
it was a departure from all precedent, it was con- 
demned. The Zeppelin crews were deemed baby- 
killers and murderers, and one of our own country- 
women threw wood at the coffin of a dead German 
airman as it passed her in the street ! For this we 
must thank the foolish, screaming headlines of the 
daily Press. 

But Zeppelin raids are legitimate ! I advance this 
most unpopular view unhesitatingly. War is war, 
whether fought on land or sea or in the air. The 
enemy, previous to 1914, gave us a pretty good idea 
why he was constructing his great Zeppelin fleet, 
also to what purpose they would be put. It was up 
to us to take the necessary precautionary measures. 
What did we do ? A Cabinet Minister, with more 
lung power than veracity, informed us that, should 
the enemy ever venture to send his aerial fleet over 
these islands, they would encounter a swarm of 
defending " Hornets." But the " Hornets " never 
found their wings. 

To these novel circumstances we must immedi- 

136 



FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 137 

ately adapt our perspective. No evil is without its 
remedy, and judging by the excellent performances 
put up by our anti-aircraft gunners on the occasions 
of the last few raids — it leads us to believe that that 
remedy has already been discovered. But, not con- 
tent with this alone, the best brains in the country 
must be devoted to this problem of the skies, for the 
Zeppelin raid is but the pin-prick in the ocean to 
what the future holds in store. 

War in the air has already taken a powerful hold 
on the public imagination. The spectacular effect 
has dazzled their eyes, the fascination of the thing 
has seized upon their senses, and the crudity of their 
methods of offensive has roused them to the 
heights of wrath and anger. It will be wise to sweep 
away these trimmings of romance, novelty, and 
fascination. Therein is constituted a very grave 
danger. Treated simply as a vessel of war the 
Zeppelin is for the time being a failure ; but the age 
of a Zeppelin as a craft is just over seventeen years. 
Aircraft have unlimited scope. The future may hold 
a more powerful Zeppelin, able to climb with ease 
above the range of the A.A. guns, a combination of 
Zeppelin and aeroplane, or a heavily armoured form 
of aircraft, shell-proof against all form of artillery. 

The game of the air is like a mammoth game of 
chess, the opponents sit, unseen and unseeing ; the 
one somewhere in these islands, the other beneath 
the mantle of the All-Highest of Potsdam. We move, 
a new and powerful aeroplane is invented. Imme- 
diately after they move, with a yet more powerful 
craft. The German engineers construct a powerful 
engine, we go one better. Ours is yet more power- 
ful ! And thus we will go on. But there ! Are not 
international politics altogether and entirely a 
gigantic game, a strange jumble of kings, queens, 
and bishops ? 



138 AIRFARE 

However, this chapter is primarily intended to be 
devoted to the matter of defence against raiding 
aircraft. First it must be well realized that it 
would be a matter of utter impossibility to guard 
each and every townlet and hamlet from attack from 
above. Such a course would require a multitudinous 
number of guns, searchlights, men and craft alike, 
and particularly to-day they cannot be spared. It 
will only be possible to guard the more important 
positions. And in the meantime it will be a com- 
paratively easy matter for the pilots of the raiding 
craft to pick out the least defended districts by a 
simple study of the map. 

How are these raiding Zeppelins to be met ? 
Obviously the best method is with similar craft. 
With Zeppelins of our own, the best defensive policy 
would be to take the offensive. To raid and bomb 
the enemy craft in their sheds and air harbours 
would indeed be carrying the war into the enemy's 
country, as they have carried it into ours. And it 
would serve the further purpose of preventing any 
possible raid. As an alternative, our craft could 
scout over the North Sea somewhere off the German 
coast and either give them battle at their weakest 
moment — i.e. with a heavy load of bombs and spare 
petrol aboard — or give ample warning by wireless 
to our fleet and home defences. 

As our Zeppelins have not yet materialized (?) we 
must consider our present possible methods of 
defence, and they consist principally of anti- 
aircraft guns and aeroplanes. With these it would 
surely be reasonable to establish, somewhere along 
the east coast, a definite line of defence ; or rather 
shall we call it an air-board similar to the sea-board 
supplied by the North Sea ? Here concentrate all 
our aerial defences ! 

Of them all, the anti-aircraft gun is most effective, 



FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 



139 



but even that is useless without a good searchlight. 
Neither is dispensable to the other. The modus 
operandi is for the distant listening post to give 
warning of the approach of the Zepp, as will also 
the incessant barkings, or rather whimperings, of the 
dogs of the neighbourhood over which the Zepp may 
happen to be. The searchlight will then first locate 
the craft, and following it incessantly with the light, 
put it within easy view of the gunner. The gunner, 
having the craft in view, proceeds to find the range 
as follows : — 




FIG. 7. TRIANGULAR METHOD OF OBTAINING RANGE AND 
ALTITUDE OF HOSTILE AIRCRAFT 



Thus far we have confined our attention to sta- 
tionary guns alone. Many of the A.A. guns, and 
practically all those of the enemy, are mobile — that 



240 AIRFARE 

is to say, they are mounted either on motor-lorries 
or on railway trucks. Being able to move the guns 
quickly from place to place makes the matter of 
range-finding and accurate firing easier and less 
complicated for the gunners. But the Zeppelin, 
despite its great bulk, is a most elusive target. 
: In the first place, we will suppose that the shell 
has burst on or in close proximity to the aircraft. 
Had the envelope been in one single piece, as was 
the case in former days, the craft would crash down 
to earth immediately. Nowadays, however, the 
envelope is merely the outer covering to some 
thirty odd smaller ballonets. If only one or two of 
these are pierced the craft can still continue on its 
way without any really serious disadvantage. 
Again, a Zeppelin, by reason of the gas in the 
ballonets, can climb at an enormously rapid pace, 
and so completely alter the altitude of the range in a 
very short space of time. 

It was owing principally to these reasons, and also 
to the fact that the matter was so novel, and that no 
practice whatsoever had been obtained in firing at 
moving objects in the air, that our anti-aircraft 
gunners failed so dismally in their earlier attempts. 
The improvement was in no manner of means due, 
as they would have us believe, to the agitation of 
the Daily Mail — which latter journal always makes 
capital by agitating for reforms which they are 
fully aware are already well under way — but to 
continuous practice ; practice that ensured both 
experience and accuracy ; practice that rendered it 
possible for them to bring down the Zeppelins at 
Cuffley and Potter's Bar. 

For without good gunnery it would be impossible, 
save in exceptional circumstances, for an aeroplane 
to bring down a Zepp unaided. The latter are the 
matadors of the air, which, after the Zepps have 



FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 141 

been crippled or disabled, perform the necessary 
finishing strokes. Which brings us to the third 
means of defence, namely, the aeroplane. 

The discussion between the relative values of the 
airship and aeroplane is the most difficult and 
delicate matter connected with aviation. The 
aviation world has always been, and will always be, 
divided into two camps, the one that swears by the 
lighter-than-air, the other by the heavier-than-air 
craft. 

A comparison between the two craft serves to 
show us that " lift " is the main property that most 
stringently divides the merits and the demerits of 
the two. The weight of the aeroplane body, wings, 
engine, fittings, etc., takes up at least 50 per cent of 
the total "lift." The weight of the pilot, observer 
and accessories takes up another 25 per cent, 
which allows only twenty-five for " war lift," 
by which I mean that necessary for bombs, ammu- 
nition, machine-gun, and spare petrol. The 
Zeppelin, on the other hand, has two sources of 
" lift/' namely, the natural " lift " of the envelope 
and the " lift " supplied by the motive power, and 
almost double the " lift " in aggregate. 

And " lift " effects speed in climbing, also allows 
for greater engine power aboard. Climbing is 
essential, for the aerial combat is always fought out 
in the upward direction, and the best strategic 
position is to be well over the enemy craft. Also 
greater " lift " allows more space aboard for 
supplies of bombs, ammunition, and spare petrol. 
Therefore in the all-important matter of " lift " the 
Zeppelin has a distinct advantage. 

The aeroplane, however, has a distinct advantage 
over the Zeppelin in the matter of speed in a lateral 
direction. But the latter is becoming faster every 
day. The aeroplane, again, is essentially a craft of 



142 AIRFARE 

the daylight. The danger of landing the heavier- 
than-air machine, always a tricky operation, is 
trebled in the darkness of the night. The supply of 
petrol aboard is extremely limited, and the duration 
power at the outside is six hours. That of the 
Zeppelin is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 
twenty-six. 

In the darkness, and even in daylight, the aero- 
plane pilot rarely sights a Zeppelin, the meeting 
being entirely a matter of luck and circumstance. 
The Zeppelin pilot can shut off his engines, and 
by ballasting can proceed unimpeded at his original 
altitude — which the aeroplane can never do — and 
be able to listen for the approach of the aero- 
plane by the sound of the engine, and manoeuvre 
accordingly. 

The aeroplane can only bring a Zeppelin down 
once it has climbed above it ; and it must be 
admitted that in that position the latter craft is 
entirely at its mercy. Several of the Zeppelins have 
a machine-gun mounted on top of the envelope, but 
this weapon is little better than useless against 
bombs. Again, however, for the aeroplane pilot the 
danger arises ; in bombing he may miss the enemy 
craft, and the bomb drop down to the land below. 
Should engine-failure occur while in mid-air the 
aeroplane must come down immediately, but the 
Zepp can continue on its way. 

Although the altitude record of the aeroplane is 
considerably higher than that of the Zeppelin, the 
average flying level is considerably less ; being with 
the former some 12,000 feet, with the latter some 
16,000. 

The aeroplane, as a craft, is comparatively 
inexpensive to construct, the landing-ground 
required not extremely extensive ; neither the 
personnel to maintain the craft on the ground. The 



FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 143 

aeroplane hangar is no mammoth erection. The 
Zeppelin, on the other hand, is extremely expensive 
to construct. The personnel aboard require at least 
twelve months' preliminary training. The landing- 
ground required is enormous, likewise the personnel 
to house the craft, also the shed to contain it. 

The Zeppelin is much more the victim of adverse 
climatic conditions and thus less airworthy. There 
have been considerably more craft lost that way 
than by casualties. 

Finally, it must be an extremely fast aeroplane 
with great climbing powers to successfully tackle 
a Zeppelin in mid-air ; and, again, the aeroplane 
must be well up before the Zeppelin arrives over- 
head. The Zeppelins, it is known, have on several 
occasions been convoyed by powerful-engined aero- 
planes ; and this fact leads me to observe immedi- 
ately the similarity between this manoeuvre and 
that of the large type of warship convoyed by a 
skirt of torpedo-boats at sea. 

Entering upon the actual combat, the Zeppelin is 
more heavily armed, and the steadiness of its gun- 
platform allows it a great advantage in the matter 
of accuracy of firing. It is, however, when com- 
pared with the aeroplane, a slow and clumsy craft 
to manipulate. It is preferable for two or three 
aeroplanes to attack a Zepp at one and the same 
time, as was recently the case off Norfolk. 

An American paper said recently, with reference 
to our latest anti-Zepp aeroplanes :— 

;t In spite of the tendency to exaggeration in the 
reports of the new war material which is being de- 
veloped in Europe, it is possible to sift out the true 
from the false, and there is good reason to believe 
that the British, in their latest aeroplanes, have 
found an effective answer to the Zeppelin. 

' When the first raids on London were made, 



144 AIRFARE 

the British possessed neither the guns nor the air- 
craft in sufficient numbers or quality to meet, 
destroy, or drive back the latest Zeppelins. The 
anti-aircraft guns could not reach effectively the 
great heights to which the Zeppelin could rise, nor 
could the aircraft rise in time to attack. Since that 
time both guns and aircraft have become thoroughly 
efficient for the work. Just in what numbers and 
of what calibre are the anti-aircraft batteries with 
which London is now so well defended, is not 
known ; but, because of the great value of high 
velocity and a straight trajectory for anti-aircraft 
gunfire, it is a pretty safe guess that there are many 
batteries of guns larger than the 3-inch. The 
50-calibre 47- and 6-inch gun, if fired at high 
angles of elevation, have a trajectory of slight 
curvature and the time of flight is small, elements 
which simplify the task of the gunner in finding 
and keeping on a moving target. 

" Information is now available as to the new 

anti-Zepp aeroplanes, and Lieut. of the Royal 

Flying Corps, who recently landed in New York on 
furlough, has given some details which agree with 
information we have received from another source. 
The problem has been to build an aeroplane with 
climbing powers sufficient to enable it to reach 
Zeppelin altitudes in time to meet the raiders and 
bring them down. The latest machines are of com- 
paratively small wing surface, and are driven by 
unusually powerful engines, capable of making 
speeds of 120 to 140 miles per hour. The increase 
in climbing speed in the past few months has been 
truly astonishing, having progressed from an ascent 
of 10,000 feet in 6 minutes to 15,000 feet in j\ 
minutes. The scouting service, both on the North 
Sea and along the east coast, is now so effective 
that London is warned of the approach of the 




^ 



- 



b 

^ 



•^ 

$ 



FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 145 

Zeppelins in time to permit the Zeppelin chasers 
to take the air and be in position for an attack 
before the raiders reach their objective/ ' 

An invention which promises a decided useful- 
ness in this matter is a 3-inch aeroplane gun, that 
hurls a shell at a velocity of 1000 feet a second, but 
has no recoil. Popular Mechanics describes it as : — 

" Designed particularly as offensive armament 
for aeroplanes, a high-power 3-inch gun of the 
quick-fire type has been developed which does not 
recoil when discharged. This distinctively new 
feature enables the instrument to be installed on a 
light machine of almost any size and fired freely 
without danger of shattering or capsizing the craft. 
The piece is unlike all other guns, and is apparently 
suited solely for aerial purposes. Its bore is uniform 
throughout and has no surface upon which pressure 
can act longitudinally. The barrel, instead of being 
open only at the muzzle, is open at both ends. This 
permits the propulsion charge to act in two direc- 
tions, thus obviating the recoil. The projectile is 
hurled from the muzzle toward its target at the 
same instant that a quantity of metal filings or fine 
shot is discharged from the breech. After travelling 
a short distance the latter loses its velocity, so that 
it cannot injure soldiers below at the rear, although 
it closely resembles that ordinarily used in pieces 
of the same calibre ; the ammunition is specially 
made for the gun. The projectile travels at a speed 
of about 1000 feet per second. Light process steel 
reduces the weight of the gun to the minimum." 

Finally, and from what is considered a wholly 
dependable source, information comes concerning 
a most unusual aeronautical experiment being 
carried out by German aerial experts. It deals 
with the development of a powerful flyinglboat 
which carries, for both defensive and offensive 



146 AIRFARE 

purposes, a swift, mosquito-like aeroplane on its 
back. The idea is almost analogous to the Dread- 
nought and destroyer of naval use. The machine, 
when last heard of, was being put through test 
flights, but had not at that time been sufficiently 
refined to warrant its actual use. 

The new machine has such remarkable stability, 
carrying capacity, and cruising radius that its 
engineers think it can be made to replace the more 
bulky and highly-expensive Zeppelins. If this 
actually comes to pass it will mark the recognized 
triumph of the heavier-than-air machine over the 
much lauded dirigible, for war purposes at least. 

It is a heavily built triplane mounting three 
motors. The wings, which are staunchly built and 
of a design that gives the craft great inherent stabil- 
ity, have a total spread of approximately 146 feet. 
The body is entirely enclosed and its windows fitted 
with reinforced glass that will not fall apart when 
subjected to heavy impacts. The panes are made 
by gluing two thin pieces of glass to the opposite 
surfaces of a heavy sheet of transparent celluloid. 
When struck with a hammer, for instance, the 
shattered part of the glass remains fast to its back- 
ing. 

Although it is to be supposed that a craft of this 
size would be difficult to manoeuvre, as compared 
with the lighter and more agile machines, it is said 
to have unusual qualities of stability, because of its 
design, and to be capable of battling successfully 
against heavy, fickle air currents that would swamp 
most flying boats. It mounts two quick-fire guns 
of small calibre, carries a crew of five men, a cargo 
of half a ton of bombs, and a sufficient supply of 
fuel and oil to keep it in the air for forty-eight hours. 

The auxiliary aeroplane which it supports on its 
back is equipped with bomb-dropping devices and 



FIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN 147 

a machine-gun. It is provided in order to ward off 
the attacks of enemy craft and to drop low and hurl 
high-explosive projectiles upon particular objects of 
attack, such as arsenals, forts, docks, and naval 
vessels. The chief difficulty standing in the way of 
its perfection has been the problem of providing 
some practical means of enabling the small craft to 
return to the mother machine after executing its 
mission. No trouble has been encountered in carry- 
ing the tiny machine, nor in launching it in mid-air, 
but it has been found quite another thing to pick it 
up again. And this is necessary to render the unit 
efficient for the part it is intended to play. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE AIRMAN'S POINT OF VIEW 

THERE was a look about him that was dis- 
tinctly of the air ; good, clear-cut features, 
hair that tended to curl, a thick-set figure, supple 
and muscular. But about the eyes one noticed 
particularly a not unpleasing steely look ; a slight 
contraction about the temples. The indefinable 
expression of the man to whom danger is fraught 
with full meaning but small fear. 

" I can't understand it," he said, " this feeling 
that our work in the air is so daring and so heroic. 
What about the poor devils in the trenches ? Per- 
sonally, and for that matter, almost every airman 
I know entertains a wholesome dread of paddling 
about waist-deep in a muddy trench. And, strange 
to say, the infantryman reciprocates the feeling — 
the admiration, I mean. I met a man only the 
other day : ' You beggars must have nerve,' he said. 
' I couldn't do it myself.' Why not ? " 

" Perhaps it is because flying is so novel ; so little 
understood," I suggested. 

" Bah ! There's not the least thing unusual about 
it. It's a much more prosaic and matter-of-fact 
business than submarining, for instance. There's a 
cold-blooded calling if you like. That's the man for 
my hero. Besides, you never hear anything said 
about the man who creeps out of a trench in the dead 
of night, under heavy shell fire all the time, to bomb 
an enemy dug-out, or the man who dashes across 

148 



THE AIRMAN'S POINT OF VIEW 149 

No Man's Land in a tank, or a sailor who's patrolling 
the lonely seas through every vile wind that blows/' 

" But the air " 

" Ah, yes, the first trip, it shakes you up a bit, I 
admit, but you soon get accustomed to it. You rock 
about when you get into the bumps — cross-currents 
of air — and feel that you want to grasp the sides of 
the machine for mental support. Then when she 
starts coming down, and the nose of the aeroplane 
sinks down in front of you, you feel your stomach 
edging up towards your mouth, but that is all. 
Afterwards it's just a matter of experience and plain 
common-sense. 

V Then ? Oh, then you just knock around getting 
the hang of things, as it were, learning how to take 
down and build up an engine, to box a compass and 
set a course, and to operate your wireless and 
machine-gun. Several passenger trips in an aero- 
plane follow on. That's to accustom one to the new 
sensation. After that you go up for a few flights in 
a dual-control machine, to acquire the correct 
movements of the rudder-bar which you operate 
with your feet, and the joy-stick that manoeuvres 
the craft up and down, to the left and to the right. 

" About that period you're what's known as a 

• Hun.' Oh ! just a youth who's learning to fly, you 
know. We've got a quaint slang, peculiarly our own 
conception. A 'bus' now is an aeroplane. A 

* stunt ' doing some unusual trick in the air. A 
' bump ' you know already. ' Getting the wind up 
you/ a not very picturesque way of saying that a 
fellow is feeling extremely nervous. And a ' gas- 
bag ' is one of those ugly brutes they use for observa- 
tion, that sit like diseased and fallen angels in mid- 
air. By the way, the Naval Air Service vary ' Hun ' 
with ' Quirk,' and they've got a pet name for every 
stranger they meet — - George ' I think it is. 



i5o AIRFARE 

" No ; getting your aeroplane ticket's not a very 
difficult matter — a distance flight of about 547 
yards, turning round two posts, once to the left and 
once to the right, a landing without your engine, and 
a landing made on a given mark. But in the R.F.C. 
that is only half the battle won. You've still got a 
lot to learn before you get your wings. 

" Practically, you may say then the new hand is 
taught to regard the air as a bad master but an 
obedient servant. It must never be feared, always 
humoured, and never taken liberties with. Every 
movement up there must be gentle, not sudden, and 
never violent. For the craft is one of moods. For 
in this the aeroplane is akin to a child, now sulky 
and petulant, now happy and obedient, now unruly 
and violent. To know these humours and to master 
them is all part of the pilot's education." 

I asked, " What are the feelings experienced on 
the first trip across the firing-lines ? '■ 

" Feelings ! " he replied. " They are a strange 
mixture of pride and fear, a certain feeling of 
satisfaction in something achieved, something done 
— a nervousness bordering on curiosity with regard 
to any unusual happening that may occur. 

" Below, the earth is very similar in appearance 
to what it is at home — a jumbled medley of green 
and blue and grey. Here and there are little white 
puffs of smoke that spring up suddenly and die away 
again in the same mysterious fashion. It is by the 
time you are over the trenches that your real 
business as an airman commences. Before, it has 
been merely a matter of ' joy-rides ' over peaceful 
meadows and rivers and fields. Here you realize 
that you have the greatest battle in history beneath 
you, and somehow you feel that you are only a 
spectator. 

" Though," he added hastily, " they say that the 



THE AIRMAN'S POINT OF VIEW 151 

onlooker sees most of the game. This is certainly 
the case in the air. It is like watching two eager 
opponents making their moves in a gigantic game of 
chess. At last you reach the trenches, looking like 
two great cracks that run zigzag fashion across the 
surface of the earth. They open fire with their anti- 
aircraft guns. An unpleasant moment. Shrapnel's 
never very pleasant, but high explosive, ugh ! — that's 
beyond words. Then, of course, it's all a matter of 
luck. Some fellows get through all right, again and 
again, others get pipped the very first time across. 
And you finish your reconnaissance, or your bomb 
raid, or whatever it is, and go home again," he 
finished naively. 

" Fighting ? " 

" Well, the first fight in particular.' ' 

He pondered hard for a few seconds. " Well," he 
said, " you'll have to use your imagination a bit." 

I smiled acquiescence. 

" You are," he continued, " 8000 feet up on a clear 
summer's morning. 

" Northwards to the sea, southwards to where the 
earth is lost in the mist and cloud, stretches the grim 
battle area. Down below the roads are thronged 
with traffic — motor transports, gun-limbers, supply 
columns, a regiment on the march, a battery of 
artillery. A little group of white-roofed huts in- 
dicates a field hospital ; behind the woods groups of 
old-fashioned bell-tents mark an infantry rest 
camp. 

" As we climb higher the view extends, now taking 
in the misty English coast -line and then the occa- 
sional flash and smoke-burst of a big gun somewhere 
in front. A kite-balloon, unearthed from a sheltered 
declivity, rises ponderous and ugly from the ground. 
Aeroplanes seem to come creeping up from all 
quarters. Every moment we are climbing higher 



152 AIRFARE 

and drawing nearer to the battle area. Now the 
winding lines of trench are visible, the smoke clouds 
of the big guns. The enemy is putting some 
' heavy stuff ' into the little town immediately 
below, which commands two main roads and a rail- 
way junction. We get our first dose of ' Archies/ 
but are far out of range. 

" Who can describe one's true feelings in that first 
flight across the lines ? Fear and bravado, nervous- 
ness, desperation, hope and despair, all are ex- 
perienced. Before the next ' dose ' we climb 
higher ; the latter may have been a chance shot, but 
the next attention, when they have us under obser- 
vation and have gauged the range, will be more 
methodical. 

" Now the earth is Lilliputian — a toy world, 
where men crawl like ants, and there are tiny pin- 
pricks that deal out death and destruction. Whole 
armies are crowded into spaces that appear to be 
only a few square yards. Can this be the greatest 
war in history, this pigmy affair, this scattered 
collection of darkish shapes, units of the two greatest 
armies in Christendom ? Convincing proof is not 
long in coming ; two shrapnel shells burst in un- 
pleasant proximity, and high explosive jolts and 
jars the machine in nerve-racking fashion. 

" Down below the most prominent landmarks are 
the trenches — winding, turning lines of grey and 
white, serried across the deep grey surface of the 
earth. It is a curious phenomenon this — that when 
the surface of the earth has been disturbed in any 
way it should always show up so prominently from 
above. 

" Over the lines and well into the enemy country, 
we are not long in finding our objective. From be- 
hind a bank of cloud a great Albatross appears 
coming ' down wind ' at a rapid pace. Now for it ! 



THE AIRMAN'S POINT OF VIEW 153 

" An analysis of one's feelings would shatter 
every recognized theory of psychology. First, one 
measures the opponent with his eye and gauges, 
always incorrectly, his capabilities. What is his 
speed ? Is he higher or lower in altitude ? A mad 
joy, a wild impetuosity seizes the pilot. He wants 
to get at close grips, but that is impossible in the air, 
and there is something unsatisfying, something dis- 
appointing in ' potting ' at a man from a distance, 
wheeling by him at sixty miles an hour without even 
a glimpse of his face. What is he thinking of ? 
What will he do ? 

' Then there comes a feverish anxiety to know 
whether the observer is ready. Why is he fumbling 
with the Lewis gun like that ? Can't he fix the 
tray ? At last all is ready. He turns with a smile. 

" Still half a mile away, the enemy appears to be 
slightly above us. We open out the engine and 
climb as fast as we can. Now we are level with him, 
but a quarter of a mile to the right. A few passing 
shots and he has flashed by. We wheel back and 
turn slightly inwards, very close this time. The 
machine-gun at his nose spits red, and ours replies ; 
the fight resolves itself into a machine-gun duel 
between the observers. 

" A few bullets flash past the wings, one ripping 
the fabric, but no harm is done. Again we wheel, 
again plunge into the fight, again engage in the 
machine-gun duel. The foe is wheeling and climb- 
ing until he gets above us, and our danger is very 
real when his observer turns his machine-gun on us. 
It is a tense moment, for a few seconds will decide 
whether we live or die, return home again in comfort 
or go spinning down broken and uncontrollable to 
a hideous death beneath. 



154 AIRFARE 

" The observer has been hit in the arm and the 
blood shows through his thick tan coat. Must we 
give in and go ? No ; the observer is a plucky 
chap and, tying up the wound as best he can, he 
signals smilingly to go on. We climb gradually until 
at last we are rising above the enemy, and ours is 
proving the more powerful machine. 

" At last the moment arrives when we almost 
hover over him. Zipp-zipp-zipp, goes the machine- 
gun. He staggers, recovers himself, staggers again, 
and then begins to climb rapidly. It is his last 
chance to live. We ' open out ' as fast as we can and 
follow him, the machine-gun yapping in the prow. 
Earth and sky, danger and safety, everything is 
forgotten in this mad rush through the air, with the 
wind whistling by, and our ears deadened by the 
roar of the racing engine. All that is most primitive, 
most savage, rises in a man's breast at a moment like 
this. The only desire is to kill, kill, kill. 

" Now the enemy is struggling on as only a man 
can when it is a matter of life or death. Now ! 
But the machine-gun tray has run out. Another 
tray ! Quick, or we shall miss him. . . . Just in time ! 
The other staggers. His machine begins to plunge 
and lurch, then suddenly it noses down, and falls 
with a sickening speed towards the earth. 

" The glow of victory, the feeling that cannot be 
equalled in this world, seizes one — but with it a 
feeling of genuine sorrow for an opponent who has 
fought like a sportsman and a man. 

" So, you see, it's all really so matter of fact and 
commonplace. There's nothing that savours of 
heroism, nothing at all," he concluded naively. 



CHAPTER XVI 

HOW A BATTLE LOOKS FROM 
THE AIR 

IMAGINE/' he said — and he was an authority 
upon such matters — w imagine a sweeping, 
animated vista of land and sea, valley and hill, city 
and meadow. The world at your feet ! A landscape 
limited alone by distance and oblivion. Imagine, 
again, that you are gazing into one of those strange 
contraptions that house themselves on piers and 
promenades of popular seaside resorts, in which may 
be seen for the humble sum of one penny a varied 
panorama of the world, and you have the airman's 
outlook. Well, perhaps, not quite ! 

" We, that is to say, my observer and myself — 
nowadays it is becoming more and more the 
unpleasant duty of the pilot, like an aerial chauffeur, 
to merely fly the machine, while the observer 
directs the course and laps up the brainwork — had 

received orders to proceed forthwith over X to 

direct artillery bombardment, preparatory to an 
infantry advance on a large scale. 

" The day was well advanced, moderately clear 
with milky thin racing clouds that hung low. These 
we skirted after the manner of a steamer hugging a 
friendly coast-line. Our orders were positive ; 
direction of artillery fire, fighting disallowed. 

" Yes ! That is a hard-and-fast rule. Fighting 
for the likes of battleplanes. Reconnaissance for 
special craft told off. The latter never to enter 
combat unless defensive." 

i55 



156 AIRFARE 

" The various types different in character ? ,J 
I ventured mildly. 

" Mostly as regard engine-power/ ' he replied 
briefly. " For reconnaissance an engine with 
duration ; for fighting — speed and climbing-powers. 



" Prominent below, a long, straight high-road, 
tree-lined on either side, pointing with the direct- 
ness of a signpost to the firing-line. We are low 
enough to distinguish the crawling streams of 
traffic in either direction. From the level of the 
ground this road appears packed to extremis. From 
above, at the same hour, large patches of white 
road surface can be seen between — a heavy gun, 
drawn by a smoking ' Puffing Billy ' on a limber ; 
a string of supply lorries returning from their 
bi-diurnal trip to the trenches; a company, or 
is it a battalion, of infantry toiling linewards to 
relieve ; motor - buses, motor - bikes, ambulances, 
farm-wagons, and motor-cars. 

" Only from above can one gauge the vastness, 
the complication of this world campaign. On the 
fore-front of the stage, well in the limelight, the 
marionettes, the gallant infantry who hold the 
trenches. They are worked and moved back and 
fro by the orderly jumble of live wires that reach 
to a back-distance apex, some fifteen miles. The 
base is C.H.Q., from whence, in triangular forma- 
tion, the wires extend to divisional H.Q., thence -to 
brigade, thence to battalion, immediately in rear 
of the scene of action. 

" And the motive power that supplies the current 
to work the marionette, the plain word of command. 

" For the rest, a three-belted panorama of earth 
surface, the green, fresh look of the peaceful 
country-side ; the green, tinged with brown, of the 



HOW A BATTLE LOOKS FROM THE AIR 157 

districts adjoining to the mud-brown waste, from 
which rise, here and there, a column of smoke which 
needs no definition. Standing back from the high- 
road a frowning chateau, timbered around, with a 
large sheet of blue water before. Slightly incongru- 
ous, it strikes one, in such surroundings. But 
apparently it has its uses. Aside of it there rears 
itself a gaunt and ugly wireless pole, a fringe of 
white-domed bell tents, a fairly continuous crawl of 
motor traffic, up and down the broad drive; 
evidently an H.Q. of some description. 

" On again, over a town of ample proportions, 
evidently convalescing after a severe bout of 
bombardment. The scene of action draws near. 
Now we have to discover our own particular sector 
for observation. 

" Oh, yes ! By map, marked out preliminary to 
leaving the ground. 

" Now we are over shell-fire. The observer is 
busy wirelessing to the guns. The continuous series 
of white-grey bursts reveal the results of their fell 
business. But we hear nothing ! Only the con- 
tinuous grunt of that infernal engine. It is an eerie, 
blood-chilling sensation, to know that down there, 
somewhere below, the air is rent with the shriek and 
whine of the great shells in their transit, and the 
roars of the resulting bursts. 



" It is getting near the time now for the signal to 
advance. Seven o'clock was the hour decided. 

" At ten to, the white shell-bursts cease and fade 
away. By rights we should be turning for home 
now. But this is the finest spectacle of all. The 
anti-aircraft bombardment has long since ceased, 
for a most excellent reason, the guns are non est. We 
can sink to a lower altitude with perfect safety. 



158 AIRFARE 

" Eight minutes to seven ! Six ! Four ! Will it 
never come ? At last ! Even in the air, thousands 
of feet above, we get the atmosphere, the second of 
hesitation, the quiet before the storm. Then the 
dull waste of No Man's Land is alive with moving 
ant-like figures, that appear, almost miraculously in 
swarms, from those hidden ruts in the surface of the 
earth. 

" Now a similar body makes itself manifest from 
the opposing trenches. The two lines meet. They 
intermingle into a bewildering jumble. For one 
brief moment the line is taut and rigid. Then it 
wavers, solidifies, wavers again, and breaks. But 
which is it ? The line farthest from our own 
trenches ! 

" It lasts for but ten minutest Above it seems a 
lifetime. We turn for home leaving behind a 
charred and burning earth, from which the smoke 
and dust rise in mournful and never-ending clouds." 



CHAPTER XVII 
AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 

WE are at last beginning to realize that in 
aircraft we have a hitherto uncontrolled 
factor of war that will alter entirely every condition 
of the modern civilized world. 

No one dare predict exactly what the future holds 
in store for aviation : but it may safely be deduced 
that warfare will be to all purposes instantaneous. 
The belligerent fleets of aircraft will set out with 
the dawn or darkness as the case may be, and 
within twelve hours the conflict must be finished 
one way or the other. For the airman there is no 
falling back on a reserve line of trenches, no pre- 
liminary skirmishing and no quarter : the fight 
must be to a definite finish. 

But war is only one side of the matter. On the 
one hand we have the use of air machines as 
craft of war. On the other, the numerous uses to 
which aircraft can be put as vessels of commerce. 
Which will be considered the more important — to 
develop aircraft for war or for commerce ? 

The answer is obvious. We must have air vessels 
for both purposes. And the latter is by far the more 
important. We may not think so to-day amid the 
turmoil and anxiety of war, when our thoughts are 
all alike, devoted to the same purpose : but the fact 
remains. The war has revolutionized the social 
status of the world. In the near future, when 
socialism and the labour movement have further 

*59 



160 AIRFARE 

developed, war will be non-existent. This war, 
provided that democracy gains the upper hand, will 
be the last. But human nature is human nature, and 
there will always remain the turbulent spirits in our 
midst, and to keep these people in order it will be 
necessary to display a certain amount of armed 
force. 

However, aircraft, and particularly the airship, 
of all the weapons employed in warfare, will prove 
itself to be the only one that will serve a satisfactory 
purpose after peace has been declared. 

Of what use are the 15-inch shell or the trench 
mortar, or the torpedo or the '75 to humanity when 
war is finished ? But the services of aircraft in the 
future will be inestimable. Likewise the Zeppelin 
has been considerably developed, but will serve a 
somewhat different purpose. 

As there have been entirely different types of sea 
vessels for war and commerce in the past, so in the 
future there will be widely differing classes of air- 
craft. For a craft of war, every unnecessary frill is 
stripped away. She enters the combat, like a 
battleship, with her decks cleared ; every available 
inch of space being required for powerful engines, 
and spare petrol to give her the necessary high turn 
of speed and climbing power. The altitude at which 
she flies must be well over twelve thousand feet. And 
great powers of duration are unnecessary. On the 
other hand, the commercial aircraft will need greater 
powers of duration, a greater " lift," more space 
aboard, less speed to climb, and an altitude of 
between five and six thousand feet will be all that 
will be necessary. 

It is practically impossible to construct an aero- 
plane possessing speed, duration and climbing 
powers alike. For the former, as also the latter, a 
highly powerful engine is required. This requires 



AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 161 

weight. Weight reduces " lift " and, necessarily, 
available space aboard. Loss of space requires the 
cutting down of the supply of spare petrol. And 
this means loss of duration. An altitude of over 
five thousand must always be maintained, in case of 
engine failure, to give the pilot time to recover 
himself, and to pick out a suitable landing-place. 

How greatly aircraft of all descriptions have 
already developed it is impossible for the general 
public to judge. Very necessarily the details of 
aerial construction have been, and will be kept 
extremely secret. However, to give a slight com- 
prehension it will only be necessary to add that the 
average speed has increased from that of 1914, of 
70 m.p.h., to that of to-day of somewhere in the 
neighbourhood of 120. Powers of duration — average 
— has increased from two and a half to six hours. 
Climbing power from 5000 feet in three minutes to 
2000 per minute. And average altitude has 
increased from 8000 to 14,000 feet. 

With every combat in mid-air some new theory is 
set up, some new conclusion arrived at, and as yet 
nothing can be definite. We may say for practical 
purposes that the strategical work is confined to 
seaplane and airship scouting with the fleets at sea 
and long-distance aeroplane raids into the enemy's 
country ; tactical work to reconnaissance trips 
over the neighbourhood of the lines and the 
direction of artillery fire. The battle formation of 
the aeroplane squadron is now and will in the future 
be similar to that of a fleet at sea. Even now the 
two methods of battle are closely akin. 

The future fleets of the air will be composed more 
of a number of vessels of uniform size, than of a 
few vessels of enormous bulk. However much 
aircraft will be developed, there is always the 
matter of " lift " to be contended with, and thus 

M 



i62 AIRFARE 

necessarily the personnel and war accoutrements 
aboard will be limited. 

There are three distinct phases of aerial combat 
to be considered — aeroplane versus aeroplane, air- 
ship against airship, and aeroplane against airship. 
Which is the most useful as a fighting unit is a 
difficult matter to decide. Thus far one is inclined 
to say the high-powered aeroplane. Zeppelins and 
airships are for the most part clumsy and unwieldy 
beasts. Seaplanes, again, for the most part are 
heavy and slow to answer to their controls. 

The important factors are the lifting power of 
the machine and weather conditions. 

Good pilotage is of supreme importance ; the 
pilot who is able to get the most out of his machine 
and knows it best will almost invariably gain the 
day. 

Clouds are often made great use of by pilots. 
Almost every day we read of a machine dashing 
out from behind a bank of cloud and taking another 
by surprise. On the other hand, clouds may prove 
disastrous to both combatants, owing to the 
peculiar property they possess of influencing the 
stability of the machine, often causing it to nose- 
dive suddenly towards the earth. 

Lift, however, is still the great factor, since the 
fight always develops into a struggle for the upper 
berth, and is usually fought out in an upward 
direction. It is climb, climb, climb, then, with the 
wind at his back, a last swoop down on the back of 
the enemy's craft — his most vulnerable position — 
and the fight is over. Various expedients are made 
use of to gain this end, such as getting between an 
opponent and the sun, " diving " suddenly, and 
" looping." With either aeroplane or airship it is 
the uppermost position that counts. 

The type of craft most useful for this class of 



AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 163 

work is the high-engined biplane of the " tractor " 
— propeller to the fore— type, the machine-gun 
firing through the blades of the propeller. The 
essentials of these machines are speed and ability 
to climb quickly. The slower machines, with 
greater powers of endurance, are more useful for 
bomb-raiding and reconnaissance purposes. 

Airship combat has yet to materialize. Many 
opinions and theories, often widely conflicting, 
have been put forward concerning the possibilities 
and probabilities of such conflicts, but nothing 
definite can be advanced until a battle between 
airships has taken place. The opinion of the 
majority of the experts is that an airship would be 
little better than useless to meet an airship, and for 
our own particular requirements — that is, the 
repelling of Zeppelin raids — aeroplanes are of more 
use ; which brings us to the combat between aero- 
plane and airship. 

Considering first their main qualities, the airship 
has greater " lifting " powers, is more heavily 
armed, can climb at a much faster rate, and has 
greater powers of endurance ; whereas the aero- 
plane has a faster turn of speed, is more easily 
manoeuvred, and is less unwieldy. With the 
Zeppelin at a greater altitude than the aeroplane, 
the latter is powerless. At the same altitude the 
odds are greatly in favour of the airship, its one 
vulnerable point being the stern — the Zeppelin 
guns only firing in fore and amidship directions, 
leaving the stern unprotected. With the aeroplane 
on top the airship is entirely at its mercy, and its 
broad back presents a target that cannot easily be 
missed. 

The tendency of the Zeppelin commanders, how- 
ever, is to increase rather than decrease this alti- 
tude with every raid, which renders^attack by 



164 AIRFARE 

aeroplane more difficult ; but, on the other hand, 
aeroplanes are being developed at so remarkable a 
speed that they will soon be able to climb above 
any Zeppelin altitude. When that occurs the 
Zeppelin menace will end for ever. 

Manoeuvres in the air, the more they are developed 
and the more extended they become, the more they 
evidence a similarity to manoeuvres at sea. And, 
regarding aerial warfare from our own point of 
view, everything points to the necessity of forming 
an entirely separate Air Service, built up on the 
principles and methods of the Navy. For the latter 
service is, in reality, the defensive arm of our units 
of warfare, whereas the army is invariably the 
offensive arm. This Air Service must be controlled 
by one commander, who preferably has had 
practical experience of aviation. It must be repre- 
sented in the Cabinet by an Air Minister, to voice 
its requirements and obtain necessary financial 
grants. Adequate training-schools must be estab- 
lished all over the country. A certain proportion 
of the pilots and observers must be devoted ex- 
clusively to naval aviation, and a similar pro- 
portion exclusively to army aviation. And the 
main objects of the aerial policy must be one Aerial 
Offensive, and the other Aerial Defensive. 

Allowing for the development of the aircraft 
of all belligerent powers, the aggregate to-day 
must be well up into the tens of thousands. This 
aggregate should prove a more than useful basis 
on which to build up the after-war commercial air 
fleets. But to develop the commercial aircraft at a 
profit, it must be done on a most extensive scale. 
The construction of the craft, exclusive of the 
training of the necessary pilots, is a highly expensive 
item. The wrecking of a machine is all too frequent 
and too possible. The cost of the upkeep, housing 



AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 165 

maintenance, and personnel is extremely heavy. 
Spare parts of the craft must always be to hand, 
and in large numbers. Standardization of parts 
would save a considerable amount of money in this 
respect. And the necessary landing grounds will 
have to be laid down. 

The aerial commercial system is no novel idea. 
Already, previous to the war, it had been attempted 
successfully in Germany with a service of passenger- 
bearing Zeppelins. Commander Usborne, r.n. — 
since killed in carrying out an extremely difficult 
and plucky experiment in the air — had well under 
way a scheme for a passenger service over Great 
Britain. This scheme had a financial backing of 
over eleven million pounds. The commander 
estimated that the average cost — allowing for all 
expenses — would be i|d., and when further de- 
veloped would be reduced to fd. per mile. 

Several similar schemes are now in existence, 
and in the U.S.A. the American Aircraft Company 
has been formed to establish a transatlantic 
service of rigid airships between England and 
America ; while aerial mail services are already in 
existence between San Francisco and Sacramento, 
and several other large cities, and the U.S.A. within 
a year or so will be linked together with innumerable 
routes in the air. 

The cargoes of commercial goods that come 
within the scope of aircraft are wheat, flax, wines, 
tobacco, silk, flowers, vegetables, dates, feathers, 
wool, hides, ebony, wax, fish, fruits, carpets, hemp, 
spices, cork, cotton, indigo, opium, rice, tea, ermine, 
sealskins, sable, otter, pearls, coffee, sugar, and 
ivory. Neither of these commodities, in reasonable 
quantities, should prove too bulky for transporta- 
tion by aeroplane or airship. On the other hand, 
heavier burdens as metals, manufactured goods, 



166 



AIRFARE 



and minerals will follow the old-fashioned route of 
the sea and the railway. 

The principal aerial trade routes will, most 
probably, be two main tracks leading south and 
two main tracks leading east. The first southern 
track will follow the route : London-Paris-Bordeaux- 
Gibraltar - Fez- Lagos -Loango -Johannesburg- Cape- 
town. Allowing a minimum average of no miles 
per hour, with little wind, and allowing half an hour 
for each landing, an aeroplane leaving London at 
eight on a Monday morning would keep the follow- 
ing time-table : — 



London 


. 8 a.m. 


Monday. 


Paris . 


. 10 a.m. 


>> 


Bordeaux 


. i p.m. 


j> 


Gibraltar 


. 8 p.m. 


>> 


Fez 


. 9 p.m. 


fj 


Lagos 


. 5.30 p.m. 


Tuesday. 


Loango 


. 2 a.m. 


Wednesday 


Johannesbur 


g . 8 p.m. 


> > 


Capetown 


. 4 a.m. 


Thursday. 



Total : London-Capetown, 2 days 20 hours. 

By steamer, via Funchal, the time taken is 
three weeks, which gives an advantage of two and 
a half weeks. Another route to Capetown would 
be: London-Paris-Lyons-Rome- Alexandria- Ankobar- 
Mombasa - Zanzibar - Bulaway -Johannesburg - Cape- 
town. 

The " Far East " routes would be : London-Petro- 
grad- Moscow-Samara-Omsk -Tomsk - Irkutsk - Pekin- 
Tokio, and London-Berlin- Warsaw-Odessa-Astra- 
khan- Merv-Delhi -Calcutta -Canton - Shanghai- Yoko- 
hama-Tokio. The Australian route would follow 
the latter as far as Calcutta, and branch off there, 
via Singapore-Surabaya-Port Darwin and Adelaide 
to Melbourne.! 




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06 
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AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 167 

Finally, we have been introduced to the aeroplane 
and the airship in all their numerous spheres of 
activity. The Zeppelin we have discussed at great 
length, the Parseval, the Schutte-Lanz, the triplane, 
and the " Baby " monoplane. We have dabbled 
with the past, in the early days of aviation. We 
have lingered with the present, and timidly peeped 
into the future. We stand now like a swimmer on 
the fringe of the great ocean, hesitating to plunge 
into a sea of uncertainty, that may hold for us only 
the calmest of pleasures, or on the other hand, the 
most gruesome of dangers. 

As I write, the news of a great air battle is to 
hand. " Germans lose 46 machines, British lose 
28 machines. Intensest fighting between large 
squadrons of aeroplanes." It is the writing on the 
wall — the herald of the gigantic matters that are 
to come ; when the aerial navies will be maintain- 
ing peace and goodwill not on, but over the surface 
of the earth. 

The handling and ordering of these multitudinous 
craft will be no small matter. Every reader who 
has sailed down Channel in the piping times of 
peace has some idea of the ever dangerously con- 
gested state of that waterway. That will be as 
nothing when compared with the numerous craft 
that will throng the aerial routes both south and 
east. Aircraft, we know, when meeting under way, 
must pass each other always to the right, and at a 
distance of over 100 metres. This indicates, then, 
that the rule of the air, as of the road, will be to the 
right. The traffic will be divided into two continuous 
streams by floating aerial lightships that will serve 
the double purpose of landmarks by day and light- 
ships by night. There will be two tracks, the one 
above the other, the higher for lighter-than-air, the 
lower for heavier-than-air craft. 



168 AIRFARE 

The matter of entering the territorial limits of a 
country has already been allowed for in the Aerial 
Navigation Act of 1913, which prohibits certain 
areas to foreign craft, also the carrying of goods 
chargeable upon importation into the United 
Kingdom with any duty of customs. It will 
be practically impossible to make the necessary 
examination of incoming craft in mid-air. And it 
is possible that a large open space as Salisbury 
Plain will be utilised for this purpose ; with Govern- 
ment boats always patrolling on the look-out for 
suspicious craft and smugglers. The other regula- 
tions will be similar to those of the present day 
applying to merchant vessels. 

The actual flying conditions will be far less 
dangerous, more airworthy, and considerably more 
pleasant and healthy than those appertaining to 
sea voyages. The aerial voyage will be a God-send 
to those passengers liable to mat de mer. The 
spherical world will be enlarged from the level of 
the sea and the land to that of mid-air. 

It will be interesting to note how a developed and 
general aviation will influence our everyday life. 
For some eight hundred years, until the advent of 
the Zeppelin raids, the British race had been immune 
from enemy attacks. It was always possible to 
escape the ravages of enemy ships and guns, by the 
simple expedient of living without their range. 
But is it possible to find a spot without the range of 
aircraft ? Does this mean that for the sake of 
peace and comfort we will perforce resort to the 
methods of the prehistoric tribes, and develop 
again into a race of cave-dwellers ? 

With houses burrowed into the sides of the hills, ■ 
or in underground cavities, far beneath the surface 
of the earth, is safety alone possible. With the 
advent of the " Zeppelin cellar " one may almost 



AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 169 

imagine the leading theatres, museums, and res- 
taurants, and the places of amusement, on a level 
with and leading off from the underground railways. 
A long line of dwelling-houses along either side of 
the lines, and an extensive system of underground 
ways, distancing from as far as London to Man- 
chester, Glasgow to London or Plymouth. Who 
can say ? The idea is of the farcical-humorous 
order judged from the standpoints of to-day. But 
then, so was the aeroplane and the airship to the 
peoples of the early nineteenth century period ; 
the submarine and the oil-fueled battleship to their 
sons and grandsons of the later half of the century ; 
and the tank and the gas-shell to the majority of 
our own generation as late as 1914. 

A flight in the air, once a matter of world event, 
is to-day a matter of the uninteresting common- 
place. In the future it will be even more so. Even 
the most timorous of women will take to it, with 
the ease that they took to sea-voyaging in the past. 
For flying is no longer dangerous ! The price has 
been paid, and dearly paid. The very novelty of 
aviation served to furnish fifty per cent of the 
assumed dangers. That novelty has passed away 
entirely and for good. 

Where a man in former days employed a motor- 
car as means of personal transit, he will, in the 
future, make use of an aeroplane. The landing in 
London will be accomplished on wide, flat roofs. 
And aeroplanes constructed on the ornithoptic 
principle will be able to effect a landing in a con- 
fined space about the area of Leicester Square. 

In time, probably, the unpleasing roar of the 
engine will be silenced, or at least diminished. The 
steadiness of the flying will be greatly increased. 
And the lines and construction of the machine will 
follow the principles employed in the construction 



l;o AIRFARE 

of the ocean-going liners of to-day. By means of 
improved wireless telegraphic and telephonic sys- 
tems, constant communication will be maintained 
with the earth from any altitude and from any 
distance. 

Aircraft will prove of immense value in explora- 
tion. No corner of the earth, however hidden away, 
will be inaccessible from above. Supervision and 
police patrolling of out-of-the-way districts will be 
aided materially, and a certain amount of survey- 
ing will be possible from the air. 

The psychology of the peoples will play no small 
part in the future development of aviation, as also 
in the future mastery of the air. And it has been 
demonstrated in a previous chapter that our own 
race in this respect shows more than usual promise. 
As it was the race of soldiers who dominated the 
world in the early days of continents alone, and 
later after the discovery of America and the more 
general usage of the seas the race of sailors, so in 
the future it will be the race of airmen that will 
dominate the world. 

But each and every nation is made up of types 
of manhood. There is the " land-lubber " ; the self- 
centred individual ; the materialist with never a 
thought beyond his own profit and loss ; the 
frontiersman, or the colonist, the greatest patriot of 
all, who gives his life unasking, and unthoughtful 
of reward, on some out-of-the-way frontier, manfully 
pushing on the development of civilization. There 
are the men from the hills, hardy and independent, 
seeking advancement by labour and strength alone, 
and the sleeker men of the plains, who substitute 
cunning for labour. 

Previous to 1914, we people of Great Britain 
were notorious for our egotism and overbearing 
arrogance. ft How many are there even of our great 



AIRFARE OF THE FUTURE 171 

men who have been stupid and foolish enough to 
state, as the case may have been, that an English- 
man was more than a match for three Spaniards, 
or two Frenchman, or two Germans ? This was due 
largely to our insular position. Our politics and 
policies were of the fireside order, that grasped only 
borough councils and city corporations. In the 
future we will obtain our true ideals of empire and 
imperialism. Our policy will be turned to nations 
and empires and continents. 

We, the greatest sea-power that the history of 
the world has ever known, were made up of a popula- 
tion, at least fifty per cent of whom had never seen 
the sea, and were so lamentably ignorant as to be 
unable to distinguish a battleship from a liner, 
whilst a further large percentage had never forsaken 
the safety of their own shores. Of these many 
suffered under the delusion that every Australian 
must be an Aborigine, that gold was to be found in 
the streets of Africa, the inhabitants of which 
country were notable for their advanced epicurean 
taste for missionaries, and that America was over- 
run with whooping cowboys and war-lusting Red 
Indians. This, of course, previous to the war. 

This latter, and the greatest of all evils, ignorance, 
aviation will cure, and cure effectively. It will 
enable the people to travel rapidly, comfortably, 
and cheaply, and share with the previous chosen 
few the beauty, the wonder, and the wisdom of 
the world without, and more particularly that of 
the air. 

Aviation will affect the psychology of every 
nation in that it will develop an entirely new race 
of men. It will eradicate the decadent side of human 
nature, and will build up the better side, the hunger 
for beauty and peace, and ever natural and wonder- 
ful phenomena of a wonderful creation. The air 



172 AIRFARE 

can never be petty or small or mean, so neither can 
the beingsjthat|navigate it. This view has already 
been proved by the chivalrous conduct of the air- 
men of every belligerent power. 

This new race of men will be quite a race apart ; 
the legitimate descendants of those bold sailors the 
Vikings, those splendid soldiers the Romans, the 
Drake privateers, the Wellingtonian Bill Adams, 
and the men of Mons and the Marne. 

They will be the missionaries throughout the 
world^of light^and hope, friendship and good feeling, 
education and health ; and more than all of ever- 
lasting peace and democracy. For in the air the 
heart of every man is the heart of a king. He is 
" monarch of all he surveys." 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 

THE prospect certainly wasn't exhilarating, 
unless one can find matter to ^rejoice over 
in a prison forty by forty, that's as dark as blazes, 
cold as the arctic regions, and through the roof of 
which the rain percolates like a shower-bath. But 
Fve grown used to it all now, so used that I can tell 
you the number of cobwebs to each corner, the 
exact moment the rats and mice creep out of their 
holes and come ambling around the shed ; almost 
imitate the waltzing arrogant gait of the long- 
bearded grandfather rats or the coy frisking of the 
lady mice. I can tell to a second the exact number 
of raindrops to each hole, and where it will drop. 
Ugh ! And then it collects in pools all round my 
frame. No wonder the poor old B.E.'s got rheu- 
matics in every joint. Sometimes they will slide 
back the great front gate, but that event becomes 
rarer and rarer as the days go by. 

Luckily for myself, I am of a philosophical turn of 
mind ; had I been of a nature like that cynical engine 
of mine, that groans at earth and sky, man and beast 
alike, there's no knowing what might have happened. 
I might have shed a wing in sheer ennui or collapsed 
at the under-carriage from sheer exhaustion. In- 
stead ! But there, I wander from my story. 

The last few days the most extraordinary events 
have taken place. Two days ago a young man, I 
am sure he was young, for he did not pause to stroke 

173 



174 AIRFARE 

his beard and hum and haw, and say : " This is my 
theory, and it is on this calculus that I base so and so 
and so." Instead he came right over to where I was 
standing, and passing a cool hand down my wings, 
said to the blue-overalled, oil-grimed mechanic at 
his side, " Better give her a thorough overhauling, 
Simmonds, she's a bit shaky in the limbs/' And 
then through the open door of the hangar I caught 
sight of the great wide expanse of blue sky ! My 
sky ! It hadn't changed to any appreciable amount 
during all these months ; it was still as fresh and as 
lovely and as interminable as ever. " Soon, very 
soon, I will be up there again," I said to myself ; 
" my home ! " I will be fighting and struggling 
with that vampire spirit of the air, with the blades 
of my propeller smiting the clear atmosphere, and 
the cool fresh air fanning my sides, and blowing the 
cobwebs from my engine. 

Meanwhile, the examination over, the mechanic 
was busily rubbing my sides down with some cooling 
preparation, the technical name for which is, I 
believe, dope. How can I describe that sensation to 
a human being ? I think it must be a cross between 
a shampoo and a shower-bath. 

Day after day this was continued, until at last one 
morning I was dragged out gently from the shed and 
squatted on the cool, fresh grass. How excited I 
felt. I heard again the loud huzzas of the crowd ; 
the rippling melody of laughter and excitement. 
The air was full of colours and flags and bunting. 
There were long, long rows of motor-cars that 
stretched as far as the eye could reach behind the 
aerodrome, and ant-like men, women and children 
that thronged the enclosures and roads and sheds. 
But no ! This was a beautiful sunlit morning ; an 
ideal day for a crowd. Yet the old place was very 
nearly deserted, save that now and then a grimy 



THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 175 

mechanic or hideously goggled pilot would pass by, 
or an occasional motor-car would roll up ; but there 
were no pretty frocks, no pink cheeks and sparkling 
eyes, no merry happy laughter to greet me this 
morning. Instead everything was grim and stern 
and business-like. 

" You'll be thinking of the old days, and wonder- 
ing where the crowd is ? " asked a blunt-nosed 
Vickers by my side. I drew myself up haughtily, for 
even a crock is not without a certain sense of 
dignity ; even he can be particular of the company 
he keeps. And a gun-bus of all things ! But he was 
a quiet, good-natured old fellow this, and ignoring 
my sneer, he went on in reminiscent fashion : "I 
know you, they Ve just brought you out of that shed 
there. It was a scandal to have kept you bottled 
up so long/' I explained somewhat stiffly that I 
had been very happy and contented, though bottled 
up, as he called it. " You know what it is, I sup- 
pose ? " he continued. " It's this new man-power 
board, they don't want any of us fellers to be 
wasted." He cast a critical eye over my parts. 
" You'll be grouped B.III, I expect." " What's 
that ? " I enquired, feeling piqued. " Only fit for 
sedentary work abroad," he explained. " They'll 
use you to carry pilots back and fro across the 
Channel ; no joke, I can tell you." 

Just at that moment our conversation was put to 
an end by the arrival of a tall young pilot, with fair 
curly hair and blue eyes. He looked at me hard for 
a moment or so, then burst out with a merry peal of 
laughter. " So this is the old bus they expect me to 
fly, is it ?" he exclaimed. " May as well say au revoir 
now." I felt very hurt, and must have looked it, 
for he added in a more conciliatory tone, " Well, I 
suppose it might have been worse." There and then 
I registered a mental vow that I would show him 



176 AIRFARE 

that all the good qualities weren't devoted entirely 
to the new-fangled type of aeroplanes, and that an 
old crock could do its share with the rest. 

Then he started my engine, and in a few minutes 
we were skimming over hill and valley, village and 
town. At first everything went wrong. That vile 
engine coughed and spluttered and sneezed, as only 
engines can. The controls were stiff. The wings 
wouldn't bank properly, and once we nearly nose- 
dived. The fair-haired boy cursed profusely, bring- 
ing down all manner of dire dangers upon my 
person. 

That first flight wasn't really a great success, but 
he stuck to me, and I did my level best to please him. 
So very soon I had got back my form of the old days, 
and then we got on famously together. 

At last came the day when I was to leave my old 
home for good. The Vickers gun-bus told me 
about it first of all. " You're going away to-day/' 

he said, " to D . The mechanics were talking 

about it in my shed this morning. As you're going 
so well you're to be sent over to fly on the other 
side." My feelings may be imagined. I was proud 
to think that no longer was I considered an old 
crock, but sorry, very sorry to leave my old home. 
It was the only home I had known. Sometimes I 
had spent an odd night or so, or a week-end at 
Salisbury or Brooklands or Eastchurch, or some 
place like that, but that was all. 

I will never forget the pangs of remorse I suffered 
at that last sight of the dear old place, with its 
cluster of low-roofed sheds. The wide, gently 
sloping aerodrome, with the straight, sun-glinted 
railway lines at the base. The clustering roof-tops, 
and the wide, winding roadway that disappeared in 
the direction of the blue, mist-hidden, fog-bound 
city. Then it all disappeared behind a bank of 



THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 177 

cloud, and I was clattering on to the unknown, the 
new life. 

Now and then I caught glimpses of old familiar 
landmarks, of sand-splashed golf links and blue- 
lined rivers, the glittering roof-top of the Crystal 
Palace. Then another aerodrome, wide and circular 
in appearance, round which my fellow craft squatted 
like broody hens. 

Suddenly, coming up from the south, I could hear 
the approach of another machine. Oh ! why do they 
call us machines, these un-understanding humans ? 
We, that are beings of grace and rhythm and life. 
There was something familiar in that regular and 
rapid tap-tap, something that sent my mind flashing 
back to the old days. Nearer and nearer it crept, 
and then — I threw my nose up joyfully — a move- 
ment that caused my fair-haired pilot to tremble 
and curse alternately. I sang out joyfully, " What ! 
Don't you know me, can't you remember ? " 
" Why ! If it isn't the old Hendon exhibition-bus," 
interrupted the other, joyfully. " Not so much of 
the old, please," I replied with dignity ; " remember 
you're getting on yourself." 

" Suppose I am," he called back over his shoulder. 
" My ! How the time does fly to be sure. Now I 
come to think of it, I'm even six months older than 
you." " Age lends wisdom to the craft," I quoted, 
and would have followed him, had it not been for the 
inexorable wrist of my pilot. So we quietly wished 
each other good-bye and good luck, and went our 
respective ways. 

Towards noon I had my first glimpse of the sea. 
I had never seen it before, that wonderful inter- 
minable stretch of moveless shimmering blue. The 
land I knew and understood, with all its varying 
moods. How often — how very often had my feet 
slipped safely past its numerous traps, death-dealing 



178 AIRFARE 

bumps, treacherous clouds, and mist-hidden alti- 
tudes, until with the familiarity that breedeth con- 
tempt I had laughed softly to myself, and gone out 
of my way to meet cunning with cunning, and 
passed on unscathed. But there was something in 
this wide, voiceless void that held me spellbound, 
that filled my heart with apprehension. If it has 
this effect on me in the sunshine, I argued to myself, 
what must it be like when the sky is hidden with 
dark clouds, and the wind comes howling along to 
whip up that placid surface into a terrifying wilder- 
ness of mountainous seas ? 

Then I felt the pilot's hand tugging gently at my 
control-stick, and obediently I turned my nose 
downwards towards the earth. Now I could see the 
aerodrome we were making for. Perched like an 
eagle's nest on the crest of the white towering 
cliffs, it was neither so large nor so pleasant looking 
as my late home, but nevertheless it looked very 
comfortable and cosy, tucked away inside a semi- 
circular line of metal-roofed hangars. 

I remained in this place for three days, and there 
said farewell to my cheery, blue-eyed pilot. On the 
third morning he came into my shed with a surly- 
looking, dark-haired individual with an ugly briar 
pipe stuck at an aggressive angle in his mouth. 
" Not much to look at, is she ? " said briar pipe. I 
felt I could have slain him on the spot, and took an 
intuitive dislike to him there and then. " But she's 
a good 'un to climb," said the other; "bit moody, 
but all right if you humour her." " I know the kind," 
replied briar pipe ; " their humours usually end in a 
nose-dive at about 3000 feet, and then—- — " He 
shrugged his shoulders expressively. They both 
laughed. Like their impudence ! 

I wasn't far out in my conjecture. My new master 
wag a wild, erratic individual, that first sent me 



THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 179 

rushing through the air with the speed of an express 
train, then plunged me down earthward like a bolt 
from the blue ; and banked and switchbacked me 
until my old — here, in the privacy of my diary, I 
own to the soft impeachment — ribs creaked and 
groaned and creaked again, until it seemed as if 
every moment they must fly asunder in sheer pro- 
test. 

Then he landed me with a nerve-trying bump, 
and with a " Have her ready by this afternoon, 
petrolled and oiled up," to the mechanic, he dis- 
appeared to his lunch, and left me standing, cold and 
shivering, in the fresh sea-breeze, with my mind full 
of apprehension concerning my approaching flight. 

He was more gentle with me in the afternoon. 
Perhaps he had lunched well, perhaps he had begun 
at last to appreciate my good qualities ; or perhaps, 
and what was more than likely, the sea held as many 
terrors for him as it did for me. Whatever may 
have been the reason, he no longer persisted in 
swinging me about, left and right, up and down, 
but moved the controls easily and gently. The 
fascination of the sea must have got into my brain, 
for the next hour or so I was moving as in a dream. 
I could feel my pilot pulling savagely away, but I 
did not move an inch. All I wanted to do was to 
get down, down to the sea. In fact, I behaved 
altogether most disgracefully. A point my pilot did 
not miss, not that that troubled me much. I was 
too intent on watching the vast blue waste beneath 
and the queer shapes that inhabited it. Northwards, 
to where the Kentish coast thrust nose-fashion into 
the sea, and a few miles distant from the shore, 
were the high-piled Goodwins. A lone sentinel, 
stiff and upright, in the blue coast mist stood 
the Lightship at the Knock. The fairway was 
thronged with shipping of all kinds. White and 



180 AIRFARE 

slim - looking the cross-Channel boat slipped by 
beneath. Racing up Channel like a school of 
porpoises were a dozen or so dark, rakish-looking 
destroyers. Here and there dotted about a squat, 
ungainly tramp, a larger and more graceful liner, 
or a monitor, broad-beamed as a pancake. At last 
the French coast came in sight ! 

I knew what was coming before he landed me ; 
my pilot was furious, perfectly furious, at my cross- 
Channel performance. Landing with a jerk, he 
sprang out of my body, and catching my ribs with 
a flying kick, until they shook again and again, he 
stalked off towards the sheds. Soon he returned 
with two mechanics that rubbed me down, and 
after feeding me up with oil and petrol, pushed me 
gently into my shed. " Don't trouble to cover her 
up, Bill," said the taller of the two. ' ' Not cover her 
up ? " demanded the other man. " No, she'll be 
going back to-morrow, she's a dud," was the reply. 
Then I knew my fate. I was to be sent home ! In 
an instant all my fond, happy dreams were shat- 
tered, I w r as disgraced and humiliated. I was an 
old crock, and would, now, never be able to join my 
brave comrades in the battle. I nearly wept my 
heart out that night, and when at last the dawn 
broke, I was long past caring. I determined to throw 
myself to the earth at the first opportunity, and die. 
But the sun had risen far into the heavens before 
they roused me. I struggled violently, but it was 
useless. I was dragged out into the aerodrome 
amidst a lot of young and self-opinionated neigh- 
bours who either deigned not to say a word to me, 
or passed sneering remarks about my old-fashioned 
shape. 

You can guess then how pleased I was to catch 
sight of my old-young friend, the fair-haired pilot, 
coming across the ground, arm in arm with my late 



THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 181 

master. I felt so excited that I began to shiver 
with sheer joy, so that the mechanic began to think 
I was going to fall on top of him, and savagely 
kicked me again. Then the two pilots came up and 
stopped in front of my nose, making the sharp-eared 
Moranes and Nieuports throw up their noses with 
rage. " I don't care what you say," exclaimed 
blue-eyes, " I flew her for over two hours yesterday, 
and she was top-hole/' " Pity you didn't fly her 
across Channel then," said briar-pipe, clenching his 
teeth from sheer annoyance. " She not only 
refused to climb, but made at least three distinct 
attempts to nose-dive into the water." 

Alas ! It was only too true, and I knew it ; it 
must have been when I was suffering from a touch 
of the I-don't-know-what-you-call-its. I felt very 
sorry, very humble ; not that I minded in the least 
what briar-pipe thought, but I was upset to think 
the fair-haired boy might agree with him. 

But no ! The latter told briar-pipe that it must 
have been due to his mediocre pilotage, and then 
they fell upon a violent argument concerning 
their respective qualities and failings as air-pilots. 
This much to the amusement of the other planes, 
who, despite their 'igh and 'aughty demeanour, 
plumped solid for my champion. "Well, I tell 
you how we'll decide," the latter went on, " I'll 
take her up when I go to strafe that big gun at 

Z this afternoon." How my heart throbbed 

within me. At last my fondest dreams were to be 
realized, and I was to take part in a glorious raid. 
My day-dreaming was interrupted by the savage 
voice of briar-pipe. " Very well, you do so at your 
own risk," he said, " and don't forget I warned 
you. What's it to be ? Two quid — that's a bet, 
isn't it ? " 

Never had I felt so fit in my life as I did that 



182 AIRFARE 

afternoon. The weather was sunny and clear. I had 
been thoroughly overhauled and petrolled. A squat, 
ugly Lewis gun had been installed over my nose, 
and my engine was working with the regularity of 
a piece of clockwork. 

At last he came ; looking strangely grotesque in 
brown leather coat and trousers, close-fitting skull 
cap, and over it a woollen Balaclava and a pair of 
hideous goggles. " Everything ready, Bates ? " he 
enquired. " Everything, sir," replied the mechanic. 

As we began to rise into the air it took me some 
considerable time to grow accustomed to the 
unusual weight of bombs beneath the prow. I must 
confess I felt a wee bit afraid of them. With these 
murderous implements of death, I, and of course 
my pilot also, were to slaughter helpless but, 
saving grace, not harmless human beings, thousands 
of feet on the ground below. 

Up and up we climbed, up and up. Now it began 
to get cold and still. The earth was almost blotted 
out from sight, and now ran on all sides to the dim 
haze of the horizon, a mad riot of blue and white, 
green and grey. I had never been up so high in my 
life before. Desperately hard though I tried to hide 
my true feelings, that confounded engine began to 
splutter and cough. I shook it and remonstrated 
with it, but all persuasion was useless. It persisted 
with its uncanny groans. I think my pilot must 
have guessed, for he leant over my side, and gently 
caressing me with a cool, steady hand, whispered in 
my ear, " Steady, old girl, steady, we'll need all 
your energy this trip/' My heart swelled with pride, 
until it seemed as if it must burst. At least he 
believed in me ! 

And then we turned eastward and clung to the 
edge of the low-lying coast. Now the country grew 
strangely unfamiliar in appearance. Fields and 



THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 183 

meadows that should have been fresh and green 
were earth-pocked and cut about as though a giant 
plough had been passed over them, carrying away 
with it, in its mad career, crop and hedge, road and 
river-bank alike; stripping the trees of young 
foliage and scarring the earth with repulsive furrows. 
And round and about it all there flashed murderous 
pin-pricks of red flame. Tiny, crawling, ant-like 
figures, hurrying now this way, now that, and then 
a strange hissing noise filled the air. An unaccount- 
able feeling of fright and terror crept over me. 
I felt the grip of the pilot tighten on the control- 
stick. Then in a flash of smoke and flame it burst 
beside me. I trembled in every plane. Gently, 
very gently, we climbed higher, followed everywhere 
by those awesome bursts of flame. 

I expected the pilot to turn back, but no, he kept 
on and on. Now the bombardment had ceased, 
save for an occasional burst. 

Still we keep on. The country on this side of the 
lines is very similar to that we have just left, 
scarred and earth-marked with shell-holes. A 
seemingly peaceful country town looms into view 
through the mist. A large cluster of houses, from 
which run roadways in all directions, north, south, 
east, and west ; a gleaming railway line and a 
sluggish, winding river. To the south of the town, 
half a dozen tall chimney-stacks — evidently the 
manufacturing quarter — from which the smoke 
curls discolouringly and thickly heavenwards. 
Before the town is a dense, green wood. No more 
peaceful view could be imagined. Can this be 

Z , where the great foundries work incessantly, 

where thousands of workmen labour night and day, 
shaping and forming every deadly implement of war ? 

Suddenly the green wood is cleft apart as if by an 
earthquake. There is a terrifying explosion, a cloud 



184 AIRFARE 

of dense smoke, followed immediately by a long- 
drawn shriek and a mass of masonry and torn 
earthworks that goes flying heavenwards at a point 
far to the rear. 

This is the gun we have come to demolish. We ! 
mark you. 

Everything is quiet and peaceful again now. 
Lower we come ; lower and lower, in wide sweeping 
circles. Now the enemy anti-aircraft begin to open 
fire, now here, now there. Now on all sides the air 
is filled with picric smoke and bursting shells. How 
can we pass through it all ? We bank and climb 
and dive, and bank again ; coming lower all the 
time. Momentarily we are out of range, but only 
momentarily. Then the firing reopens with renewed 
intensity. Suddenly there is a sharp, stinging pain 
in my left wing, as if someone had suddenly plunged 
a red-hot knife therethrough. I lurch, only in time 
and with a sharp intake of breath the pilot pulls 
me up. 

Now we sight the dull gleaming form of the gun 
through the trees. Down go the bombs, one, two, 
three, exploding on all sides, but never near the gun. 
Again we wheel. The bombardment grows terrifying 
in its intensity. We bomb again and again. 

Again I feel those sharp stabs left and right. It 
is the most trying moment of my life. With his 
sixth my pilot hits the gun-emplacement. There is 
an explosion louder than all the rest ; where the 
forest had shown a moment or so before green and 
restful, the earth is distorted with up-blown trees 
and strange towering piles of fresh earth. 

We sneak off, like a dog with its tail between its 
legs, fearful, yet hoping, leaving in our wake, in 
place of the peaceful country town, an armed 
fortress, the guns of which fill the heavens with 
wailing, bursting shells. 



THE DIARY OF AN AEROPLANE 185 

Will we ever get back ? I try to climb, but fail 
miserably in the attempt. We are winged, hope- 
lessly winged. For a moment it seems that my 
pilot must give way and land in their country to be 
made prisoner. This is the psychological moment, 
now or never. With a desperate effort I climb 
another thousand that leaves me throbbing and 
panting for breath. I feel the rich, warm blood of 
the pilot trickling down my body. Suddenly he 
falls inanimate in his seat. He has been hit and has 
fainted. Now I can show my appreciation for his 
kindness. I keep as steady as a rock. Thank 
heaven I do not possess any infantile, sudden tricks 
like those skittish Nieuports. 

Presently he recovers, and now my own wounds 
agonize with a dumb, gnawing pain. We are near 
the lines, we must, we shall go up. Desperately, 
helplessly I try to climb. The effort almost brings 
me crashing to the ground. There is now only one 
thing for it ; the pilot opens the engine out to her 
fullest extent, we dash on as we have never done 
before, through a fusillade of rifle bullets, anti- 
aircraft and other bursting shells. I feel that I am 
hit in a hundred different places. Ah ! can we ever 
reach our aerodrome again ? 

We are across, as if by a miracle. The next 
twenty minutes seems a lifetime. Can we — will we 
ever get there ? Ah ! At last ! 

I am back in the old dark and draughty shed 
again, a broken, helpless crock, fit only for the wood- 
broker or the old iron merchant ; brought back 
ignominiously they tell me, by rail and steamer, 
for all the world like a bar of iron or a mouse-trap. 
But then these silly, thoughtless humans still 
persist in regarding me as a soulless machine. 
I have put up a good fight, I have done my duty 



186 AIRFARE 

and all that was expected of me. I can do no more ; 
hence I must be scrapped. It is the way of the world, 
and the world can be at times, ah, so cruel ! 

The cobwebs are still there, more numerous if 
anything. And when the twilight falls the old 
familiar rats and mice creep out of their holes and 
sit round in wondering circles to listen to the 
stories of my great adventure, or potter round my 
wings to examine my honourable scars. 

Now probably they will nail a brass plate on my 
fuselage, with an account cut prosaicly in prosaic 
letters thereon of the great deed. More probably I 
will become the piece de resistance of the local red- 
cross show, or be wheeled through the streets, 
drawn by a donkey or a decrepit horse on a flag day. 
Perhaps cut up and made into blacklead pencils. 
Ah, me ! It's a strange world ! 



INDEX 



Adelaide, 166 

Aerial Navigation Act (191 3) , 

8, 9, 10, 168 
Africa, East, 20 
Air currents, 17, 18, 19 
Airmen : 

Temperament of, 34-41 

Essential qualities for, 50 

Slang terms of, 55 

Training of, 55-61 

French, 108 
Albatross, type of aeroplane, 

26, 106, 152 
Alexandria, 166 
Algiers, 116 
Altai Mountains, 22 
Altimeter, use of, 4, 5 (see 

Statoscope) 
America, 16, 165, 170 
America, Aero Club of, 46 
American Aircraft Company, 

165 
American Civil War, 63, 69 
Amsterdam, 16 
Ankobar, 166 
Archibald gun, 116, 152 
d'Artagnan, 96 
Asia, 22 

Asia Minor, 45, 46 
Astra Torres, 127, 130 
Astrakhan, 166 
Atlantic Ocean, 16, 129 
d'Aucourt, M. Pierre, 45 
Australasia, 16 
Austrians, 116 
Aviano, 31 



" Baby " airship, 127, 167 
Balaclava, 182 



Ball, Captain, v. c, d.s.o.,m.c, 

104-7 
Balloonists, conference of, at 

Brussels (1902), 6, 7 
Balloons, observations by, 63, 

64, 69, 71, 116-22 
Barlow torpedo, 86 
Barton, Dr., 126 
Bates, 182 
Baumgarten, 124 
Beatty, 81 
Belgium, 45, 79 
Bergen, 16 

Bergerac, Cyrano de, 96 
Berlin, 16, 166 
Berlin-Baghdad, 22 
Berne, 16 

" Beta" airship, 127 
Biarritz, 30 
Bizerta, 46 
Black, 69 
Blanchard, 120 
Blankenburghe, 75 
Bleriot, Channel flight by, in 

1909, 44 
Bleriot, type of machine, 31, 

45 
Bombs, 84, 85, 98 
Bordeaux, 30, 166 
Boston, 69 
Bovill, Lieut. -Colonel, R.F.C., 

122 
Bremen, 16 

Bristol, type of machine, 31 
British Aviation, first meeting 

of, 44 
British Government, attitude 

of, to aircraft work, 24 
Brooklands, 176 
Bruges, 75 
Brussels, 6, 16, 87 
Bulawayo, 166 



187 



i88 



AIRFARE 



Cacquou, Captain, 122 
Cairo, 45, 46 
Cairo-Khartoum, flight from, 

Calais, 4 
Calcutta, 166 
Cape Town, 16, 166 
Cardiff-London, flight from, 

126 
Catskill Mountains, 5 
Channel, the, 44, 166, 180, 181 
Chartres, Due de, 123 
Chevillard, 45 
Chicago, 45 
Chikahominy, 70 
Chingford, 4 
Christiania, 16 
Cirro-Cumulus, 19 
Cirrus, 19 
" Citta di Milano," purchase of, 

31 

Clement-Bayard, types of air- 
ship, 129-30 

Cody, Colonel, 44, 127 

Cologne, 16, 45 

Compass, use of, to airman 
11,12,13 

Conneau, Lieut., circuit of 
Britain won by, in 191 1, 44 

Constantinople, 46 

Copenhagen, 16, 46 

Coulette, 116 

Cronje, force of, 64 

Crystal Palace, 1 77 

Cufiley, 140 

Cumulo-Nimbus, 19 

Cuxhaven, 27, 132 



Daily Chronicle, 72 
Daily Mail, 140 
Dante, 34 
Dardanelles, 118 
Delacombe, Squadron Com- 
mander, R.N.A.S., 122 
Delhi, 166 
Delta, 127 



Denmark, 22, 45 

Dorcieres, Rouzier, 96, 97, 98 

Douglas, Archibald, 117 

Dover, 91 

Dumont, Santos, 124 

Dumont, Santos, prize won by, 

in 1906, 44 
Dupuy de Lome, 124 (see 

Lome) 

E 

Earth surface, appearance of, 

from the air, 2 
Eastchurch, 45, 176 
Egypt, 20 
Emden, 133 
"Eta," 127 



Farman, Henri, grand prize 
won by, in 1908, 44 

Farnborough, Government 
balloon factory at, 126 

Fauste, 119 

Federation Aeronautique In- 
ternationale, 7 

Ferrara, 31 

Fey, 166 

Flamborough Head, 81 

Fokker, 98 

France, 24, 29, 30, 46, 128-30 

Franco-Prussian War (l 870-1), 
116 

Frankford Arsenal, 86 

French Aero Club, 46 

Friedrichshaven, Zeppelin base 
at, 87, 132, 133-5 

Funchal, 166 



" Gamma," 127 

Garnerin, 120 

Garros, 45 

Germany : 

Aerial ambitions of, 22 
Training of pilots in, 25-6 
Aircraft work in, 25-6 
Numerical superiority of, 33 



INDEX 



189 



Germany (cont.) : 

Aircraft construction in, 79, 

80 
Air fleets of, 90 
Airship invention of , 1 3 1 

Gibraltar, 166 

Glasgow, 169 

Glen-Curtiss (America), 45 

Gliffard, Henri, 123 

Gnome engine, 127 

Gobi Desert, as natural aero- 
drome, 22, 23 

Goodwins, 179 

Gordon-Bennett, 44, 45 

Graham-White, 45 

Great Britain : 

Regulations for flying in, 

7-9 

Distance from German air 

bases, 87 
Passenger service over, 165 
National character of, 170-1 

H 

Hague Convention, 87 

Halberstadt aeroplane, 89 

Hamburg, 16, 133 

Hamel, Gustav, 45 

Hanlein, 124 

Hastings, Battle of, 54 

Helan, 46 

Heligoland, 22, 27, 87, 133 

Hendon, 4, 177 

Holland, 45 

House of Commons, 4 

Hull, 22 

Huns, 55, 60, 74, 87, 96 



India, 20 
Innsbruck, 16 
Irkutsk, 166 
Italy, 31, 43, 1 30-1 

K 

Kalahari Desert, 23 
Khartoum, 45 



Kent, coast of, 179 

Kiel, air station at, 27, 87, 133 

King, 69 

Kitchener, armies of, 92 

Knock, the, 179 

Konigsberg, 133 

Kriegsfeld, Dr., 117 

Krupp, 116 

Kultur, 82 



Ladysmith, 64 

La Fontaine, 63 

Lago di Bracciano, 31 

Lagos, 166 

Lake Constance, experiments 

of Count Zeppelin at, 33, 

132 
Landmarks, 2-4 
Lebaudy airships, 127, 129 
Lebaudy, the brothers, 128, 

129 
Legagneux, 45 
Leicester Square, 169 
Leighton, Sir Bryan, 121 
Lenoir gas-engine, 124 
Leonardo da Vinci, 119 (see 

Vinci) 
Lewis machine-gun, 98, 153, 

182 
Libyan Desert, 23 
Lightship, 179 
Lisbon, 16 
Loango, 166 
Lombardo, 31 
Lome, Dupuy de, 124 (see 

Dupuy) 
London, Lord Mayor of, 48 
London- Manchester, flight 

from, 44 
London : 

Map of, for aerial use, 6, 7 

Defence of, 87, 143-4, 169 

Raids on, 89, 144 

Aerial trade route from, 166 

System of underground ways 
from, 169 
Lowe, 69, 70 
Lyons, 166 



190 



AIRFARE 



M 

Mackenzie - Kennedy, Chess- 
borough, 28 

Maps, contour, meaning of, to 
airman, 2-6 

Map making and reading, im- 
portance of, to airman, 1, 50, 
70 

Maitland, Wing-Commander, 
121 

Manchester, 169 

Manchester (U.S.A.), 69 

Mannheim, 131, 133 

Mercator's chart, construction 
of, 6 

Marne, the, 108, 172 

Martin, Herr, 22 

Mastery of the air, 16, 17 

Mastery of the sea, 15 

"Mayfly," 127 

McLellan, General, 69 

Mediterranean, 46 

Melbourne, 166 

Merv, 166 

Mesopotamia, 20, 111-12 

Metz, 16 

Milan, 16 

Mineola, 86 

Mirage, effects of, on flying, 20, 
in 

Moisson - Aldershot, flight 
from, 127 

Mombasa, 166 

Monaco, the meeting, 30 

Mons, 108, 172 

Mont Blanc, 45 

Montgolfier, Joseph, 119 

Morning Post, 127 

Morse, apparatus of, no 

Moscow, 23, 166 

Moulinais, Brindejonc des, 46 

Mount Everest, 5 

Munich, Zeppelin base at, 87 

N 
Nadar, 6g 
Nancy, 46 

Naval Air Service, 149 
Negretti, 69 



Nero, 54 

New York, 45 

Niagara Falls, 21 

Nieuport, type of machine, 31, 

94. 185 
Night landing and method of 

lighting, 10, 11 
Nimbus, 19 
Nish, principal aircraft base 

at, 32 
No Man's Land, 149 
Norfolk, 4, 143 

North Sea, 81, 88, 94, 138 144, 
Norway, 22, 45 
" Nulli Secundus II," 127 



Observer, work of, 64-7 
Odessa, 166 
Omsk, 166 
Ostend, 4, 94 



Paardeberg, 64 
Palestine, 20, 46 
Paris, 45, 46, 124, 166 

Siege of, 63 
Paris-Cairo, flight from, 45 
Parseval, Colonel von, 1 17 
Parseval, 127, 130, 131, 167 
Paulhan, London-Manchester 

flight won by, in 1910, 44 
Pekin, 166 
Petrograd, 46, 166 
Peugot, 126 
Pilotage and Navigation, 

difference between, 2 
Plymouth, 169 
Poitevin, Frau, 120 
Popular Mechanics, 145 
Pordenone, 31 
Port Darwin, 166 
Potsdam, 134, 137 
Potter's Bar, 140 
Pourpe, M., 45 
Prussian Guard, 97 
Putzig, converted into naval 

flying school, 27 



INDEX 



191 



Q 

"Queen Elizabeth/' the, 118 
Quirk, 55, 60 

R 
Reichstag, 133 

Remington repeater, use of, 98 
Renard, Captain, 124 
Rheinau, 134 
Roba-el-Khali Desert, 23 
Robert, the brothers, 123 
Robertson, 120 
Rome, 31, 166 
Rostock, 133 
Royal Aero Club, 7, 8, 60 
Royal Flying Corps, 44, 92, 

in, 144 
Russia, 22, 27-8, 45 



Sahara Desert, 23 

Salisbury, 176 

Salisbury Plain, 168 

Salonica, 20 

Samara, 166 

Samson, Lieut. C. R., first 

flight of, in 1 91 2, 45 
San Francisco, 46 
San Francisco - Sacramento, 

aerial mail services from, 

165 
Saragossa, 16 
Sardinia, 43 
Scarborough, 80 
Scheer, 81 
Schutte-Lanz craft, 132, 133- 

4> 167 
Schwartz, 124 
Scientific American, 12 
Scutari, siege of, 32 
Seine, the, 130 
Serbia, aircraft equipment of, 

32 
Shanghai, 166 
Sikorsky, 28, 46 
Singapore, 166 
Somma, 31 
§gn4erburg, 27 



South African Vv^ar, 53 

Spain, 15 

Spanish Inquisition, 34 

Spion Kop, 64 

Stoeffler, Victor, 45 

Slatoscope, use of, 4, 5 (see 

Altimeter) 
Stockholm, 46 
Stratus, 19 
Surabaya, 166 
Sweden, 22, 45 



Taboteau, M., 45 

Teneriffe, Peak of, 5 

Tides, importance to sea-plane 

flying, 21 
Tissandier, 124 
Tokio, 166 
Tomsk, 166 
Tondern, 133 
Torres, Sefior, 130 
Trade routes by air, 166 
Tripoli, war in, 30 
Turin, 31 
Turks, 112 

U 
Usborne, Commander, r.n., 
165 



Vedrines, 45, 46 
Venice, 31 
Verdun, 129 
Very's pistol, 11, no 
Vickers, 127, 175 
Vienna, 16, 31 
Vinci, Leonardo da, 119 
Vladivostock, 16 
Voisin biplane, 44 

W 

Warsaw, 166 
Weather conditions, 1 7 
Wells, H. G., 72 



192 



AIRFARE 



Weymann, 45 

Whitby, 80 

Whitecraft Club, 49 m 

Whitehead : 
Machines, 47 
Organization of, 47 
Works of, 47, 48, 49, 51 
Aerodrome, 49, 51 
School of Aviation, 50 

Wilbur-Orville-Wright, experi- 
ments of, at Auvars, 25, 
29 

Wilhelmshaven, 133 

William the Conqueror, 54 

Willows, Mr., 126 

Winchester repeater, use of, 98 

Wireless World, in 

Wismar, 133 

Wolfert, 124 

Wolseley engine, 127 



Wormwood Scrubs - Douai, 

flight from, 126 
Wright, the brothers, first 

flight of, in U.S.A., 33, 44 
Wright, Wilbur, flying by, in 

France, 44 



Yokohama, 166 
Ypres, 74 



Zanzibar, 166 
Zebrugge, 75 
Zeppelin, Count, 25, 26, 33, 

124, 132 
Zeppelins, 54, 64, 77, 80, 81, 

82, 86, 88, 89, 114, 124-6, 

132, 147-160, 162-7 
Zurich, 97 



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